Brewblog: All-Grain Bavarian Hefeweisen (Northern Brewer)

Just a quick update on my homebrewing adventures.

Finally got around to doing my first AG brew using my new mash tun, using the Northern Brewer Bavarian Hefeweisen kit. The crushed grain sat in my garage for a couple weeks, then got tossed into the kegerator for storage for the next 4-5 months. Hopefully the grains didn't go stale and affect the flavor of the malt. As this was my first AG experience, I had a slight hurdle with the volume of the strike (?) water. I was attempting to do the more complex multi-step protein/saccharide rests, and may have started out with far too much water. Thus I ended up with about 9 gallons of liquid that needed to be boiled down to ~5. I still don't fully understand what grain/water  target ratio I should be using at mash-in. Needless to say, I burned off a good amount of propane just boling off those 4 gallons of excess liquid.

I'm unsure of how to properly calculate mash tun efficiency, however what I do know is that the listen target for original gravity was 1.049, and I ended up with 1.046. I was hoping for higher, as I did rinse the grain pretty well (or so I thought), and by comparison, my experience with the extract version of this kit has resulted in an OG of as high as 1.052. The comparison might not be valid though.

Fermentation was very active, as usual, finishing up it's frothy activity within the first 36-48 hours. This time around I didn't have any issues with blowoff.

So, with any luck, I should have a perfectly drinkable beverage in just under 4 weeks. Now to figure out where to re-fill my 10# CO2 cylinder.

Here's my current brewhouse/pub status:

On deck:        Pumpkin Ale (Indie)
Primary:        Bavarian Hefeweisen (Northern Brewer)
Secondary 1:    Empty
Secondary 2:    Empty
Keg 1:          Tapped-out
Keg 2:          Tapped-out
Keg 3:          Tapped-out
Keg 4:          Tapped-out