I brewed my first all-grain batch on Saturday, and decided to go with a recipe for a simple beer that I had made before using liquid malt extract.   One of my first beers was the Dry Irish Stout from Northern Brewer, and it was dead simple and turned out really well.  I decided to make something similar, and based my recipe on their All Grain version of the same beer.

O.G: 1.042

Mash ingredients
– 6-lbs. English Maris Otter
– 2-lbs Flaked Barley
– 1-lb English Roasted Barley
Boil
– 1.5-oz. Kent Goldings 60-min
– 0.5 oz Kent Goldings 15 min
Yeast
-Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast.  Apparent-attenuation:-71–75%. Flocculation: medium. Optimum-temp:-62°–72°-F.

Mash Schedule

Saccharification Rest: 152° F for 60 minutes

Mashout: 170° F for 10 minutes

As I expected, a first time doing an all-grain batch was a bit confusing and I messed up a number of things.  I think that my calculations were correct for most things, but I had trouble getting my water to temperature on time.  I didn’t realize how long it would take to get water to temperature in several situations.  This resulted in my mash lasting an extra 10 minutes while I waited for my mash out water to hit temperature, then I didn’t measure correctly for my sparge water.  I eventually got a full 6.5 gallons, though, and the beer definitely looks like a stout.  At 8 hours, it’s happily bubbling away in the fermenter.

I calculated my efficiency at 34.7, which would be about 97%.  That seems too good, I’m wondering if I ended up not getting a very good reading from my refractometer.  I definitely should consider using the hydrometer in tandem next time.