Chinook IPA
Brewer
Date
Batch Size 5.226 gal Boil Size 6.976 gal
Boil Time 60.000 min Efficiency 72%
OG 1.061 FG 1.015
ABV 6.0% Bitterness 85.6 IBU
Color 9.5 srm Calories (per 12 oz.) 202
Fermentables
Total grain: 12.250 lb
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Pale Malt (2 Row) US Grain 10.000 lb Yes No 79% 2.0 srm
Corn Sugar (Dextrose) Sugar 1.000 lb No Yes 100% 0.0 srm
Cara-Pils/Dextrine Grain 12.000 oz Yes No 72% 2.0 srm
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 120L Grain 8.000 oz Yes No 72% 120.0 srm
Hops
Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Chinook 13.9% 0.500 oz Boil 60.000 min Leaf 19.6
Chinook 13.9% 1.000 oz Boil 25.000 min Leaf 27.2
Chinook 13.9% 2.000 oz Boil 15.000 min Leaf 38.8
Chinook 13.9% 1.500 oz Flame out 10.000 min Leaf 0.0
Chinook 13.9% 2.500 oz Dry Hop 5.000 day Leaf 0.0
Wyeast 1056 - 1L Starter in a Growler
Tgt Mash Temp 151.000 F 60.000 min
Brew Date 2013-03-22
Pre-Boil
SG 1.051 Volume into BK 6.875 gal
Actual Mash Temp 152.000 F
Postboil
OG 1.072 Postboil Volume 5.5 gal
Volume Into Fermenter 4.600 gal (Leaf Hops absorbed a lot of wort)
So for my first all-grain, everything went really well. After reading enough horror stories about other people's first times, I expected to overlook something in my setup. There were two things I missed, the first was I underestimated my efficiency. My tgt OG was 1.061 with 1lb of Dextrose in it to dry it up (1.053 without the sugar), which I was planning to add a few days after fermentation started to let the yeast work on the malt sugars first. I ended up hitting 1.072 without the sugar, so I probably won't add it. I think it might end up too malty without it though, since the grain bill has so much caramel malt to counteract some of the dryness. Should I add it anyway?
The second thing was that I didn't realize how much wort would be absorbed by the 5oz of leaf hops. It ended up being close to a gallon all said and done. I got 4.5 gal into the fermenter, and pitched my starter which brought me up to 5 gal.
I was also pretty impressed with my ghetto MLT (read: free). It's a 5 gal igloo water cooler, that had no lid so it was free. I just bought a sheet of 2" rigid foam and cut it to fit tight in the top. It worked pretty well too, I only lost 1*F throughout the mash. With a sheet of foam, I have enough material to make 16 lids too, so who cares if it breaks.
This post was a lot longer than I expected, sorry.
Kevin