So it begins......

[pretorjn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pretorjn]

I received my package from Beerlab yesterday. Some basic equipment (that I still needed) and grain/hops/yeast for my first two brews.... nogals AG. All I now need is a pot (which I see Makro has on special this weekend) and if I get the time, the STC-1000 from Bryan.

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If all goes as planned, my first brew will be next weekend
Good luck to self

[StevenD (Slainthe) Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close StevenD (Slainthe)]

Next weekend? You can wait that long?

I would be out in the brew-cave already....

Good luck....you will enjoy the AG experience.

[Shottie_gp Member Find all posts View Profile Close Shottie_gp]

Looks good .
I cant wait to do a decent size all grain .

[pretorjn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pretorjn]

Its my first, so...................
Steven, I need to wait at least until next week. Maybe I'll try one evening next weekend, but my buddie advised me to allow enough time for the first brew........

[StevenD (Slainthe) Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close StevenD (Slainthe)]

Its my first, so...................
Steven, I need to wait at least until next week. Maybe I'll try one evening next weekend, but my buddie advised me to allow enough time for the first brew........

Agree with that. You will want to do everything perfectly, so you will spend a lot of time on that first brew. I think my time was close to 5hrs.......but worth every minute when that first bottle was cracked open four weeks later!!

[JacoDT Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JacoDT]

Good luck with your first brew. Take it slow and do it properly.
You'll find it's actually pretty easy and the beer comes out very drinkable even you screw up somewhere. So don't stress about it too much.

Just seeing your pic with ingredients got me all excited, so yesterday I picked up some grain and will also brew this weekend... Lol

[pretorjn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pretorjn]

My first brew is in the fermenter. Whoop whoop! 🍻 And now the long wait

More on my experience:
My mash turned out to be a helluva schlep! My guess is that I milled the grain too fine and got stuck with a very slow flowing wort out of the mashtun. And it got stuck at least 5 times with me ending up actually doing a "batch sparge" lookalike. From starting with the mash to starting the boil took me 4.5 hours 😳.

The boil and racking actually went pretty smooth as well as the dry yeast pitching. The OG turned out to be 1.062 but estimated was 1.055. I boiled and cooled an additional 2l and added to the fermenter before pitching. Then I gave myself over to a Damwolf or two. Set the fermentation temp to 19 degrees and the process ended 18:30 after starting at 11:00.

On Monday morning I started getting impatient but the first bubbles eventually showed up 36hours later (this morning) but only lasted for about 12 hours. Tonight I can see there is still pressure in the fermenter with the air bubble in the blowoff almost 20mm below the water surface. Not bubbling but still under pressure. I checked the seal and all seems cool. I assume this OK? How deep should the blowoff water be (mine is about 25mm)?

Well a lot of lessons learned .... Next time will be better. Now for the long wait

[pretorjn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pretorjn]

Sparging flow from the mash tun. Took freakin long
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Even the boys helped dad. Lots of fun with your clothes on
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[pretorjn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pretorjn]

Measured the SG tonight. Came down to 1.008 from 1.051 in ( days. Not too bad I think

[pretorjn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pretorjn]

Sorry. 5 days for pretty good attenuation. Estimating the AAA will be around 5.6% ABV

[CapeTownBrew Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CapeTownBrew]

Well done! Sounds great, I can't wait to do my first AG!

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

[pretorjn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pretorjn]

One more week to go for bottling.... where do you find the patience?

[Shottie_gp Member Find all posts View Profile Close Shottie_gp]

Dont think about it somehow dont ask me how though

[StevenD (Slainthe) Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close StevenD (Slainthe)]

One more week to go for bottling.... where do you find the patience?

Somehow that week flies past. I think you continually watch/monitor the fermenter for bubbles in the first week and then your mind loses interest. When you realise it, the second week has gone and you get all excited again at the prospect of the next phase of the process.

Then the wait begins again, as you wait for a couple of weeks as the bottle conditioning takes place....

[pretorjn Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close pretorjn]

O geez, now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that my bottle capper arrives before Sunday. Stock taking at Beerguevara has delay my order a bit

Otherwise I will have to wait some more.... The wort will be in the primary fermenter for two weeks this coming Sunday. Will it be OK if I have to leave it there for another 3 or so days after SUnday? Maybe crash cool a few days while I wait for the capper? If so what temp should I use?