The first batch of all grain and my first recipe.

Oh the lessons we learn!  This is one of the many reasons why I love homebrewing so much.  I learned a lot brewing my first all grain brew yesterday and with learning comes improvement.  I'll quickly break down the day's event:

First of all, I don't have all of the equipment that I need.  Well, I do, but they are just pots and strainers that I borrowed.  It was interesting in my rush to find what I needed but I did find everything that I needed so it eventually worked out.

Being that I am using the BIAB (brew in a bag) method I did not know that the straining bag I bought was in fact a BAG!  I thought it was just a giant piece of cloth that awkwardly "fit" inside the kettle.  Nothing is foolproof.

I didn't use all my sparge water and I was way under my finish amount.

My efficiency number was incredibly low.  This is probably due to not using the straining bag properly and not using my sparge correctly.

With the issues I had yesterday the beer should still turn out just fine, just not at 100% quality, and being my own recipe I am so far pleased with the result.  We will see once it is done fermenting in a few days how it turns out but I have mostly high hopes.  Now I know I need to use the bag correctly and use my sparge water correctly and this should increase the efficiency and quality of my beer.

And just like that I learned from my mistakes!  Every venture comes with the risk of underachievement to failure but if we cannot see where we faulted then we will never change what we are doing.  Homebrewing is such a high reward hobby and the risk of underachieving decreases with every brewday but you have to keep brewing.  I know I will.

OH!  If you haven't noticed, stout won the poll.  Okay, stout and wild rice ale tied at two votes a piece but being the brewmaster I went with stout.  Mistakes are well hidden, I do have flavors of stouts I want to shoot for later, and wild rice ale is a relativly new concept in brewing so it outside my comfort zone for now.

Northern Brewer just came out with more one gallon recipe kits and I just might pick some up.  Other future plans include tinkering my stout recipe, adding aromatic malts to the stout, and possibly a porter.

Happy brewing!