all grain newby need some advice

and we are under way went for 78 strike temp instead of 76 as suggseted and hit it pretty well bang on and im gunna check it after 20 minutes and add water if needed. wish me luck

just one question, i don't have a tap on my pot so when the wort is all done cooled (no i am not there yet)do i just pour the hole lot in or do i try and leave the bottom stuff behind? and the recipe i am using asks for whirlflock should i use this even though i don't have a tap?

Sorry mate, didnt see this till just now, how did you go? I'm about to brew in an hour or so if you wanna watch via google hangout, not very exciting but you can see how I do it.

I'm Gash Slugg on facebook if you didnt know or we arent friends already.

Hey gash sorry i missed your hang out it would have been good to see your method, things got a little crazy around here. My brew day went not too bad actually for a first attempt my efficiency is way down and I came up 2 litres short but I learn't a lot had a bit of fun and I still ended up with 18L of 1044 wort fermenting in the fridge so I'm happy . so i wont get a chance to brew for a couple of weeks but when i do I'm going to do the same brew again and see if i can improve my efficency and Im pretty sure i can. one major factor I think was the crushed grain i got from the home brew shop, it didn't seem fine enough as there wasn't much powdery stuff and took bugger all to mix in unlike in many videos i have watched. I didn't quite get to my mash out temp either and just drained anyway so i will add an extra litre next time. also i only did one big batch sparge so will do it in two halves next time and make sure i drain it slower and also add a few more litres to cover for the 2 litres i came up short. so yeah I'm feeling much more confident about round two

Sounds like it went pretty good mate, especially for a first attempt! Yes I'd still use a whirlflock, and ideally yes you'd try and leave behind most of the trub (goop lol). Takes a couple of brews to get all your water quantities worked out.

I just poured the hole lot in through a seive and now i have big fluffy clouds of proteins foating in there lol i take it this will drop to the bottom after fermentation slows down?

Yes it should drop out

Just caught this thread. but I'd say you did great for first AG, the Protiens and such should settle out fine, are you bottleing or kegging?

and Like Gash said it takes a few runs to get your set up dialedin (even if your on batch 40 or so) if you change stuff it takes some adjusting. so sounds like your off to a great start.

so its been over two weeks and i still have a lot of floaties in the fermenter and the gravity is still 1015 the same as when i checked it on monday. i have given the fermenter a few little rocks a few times this week and when i do a few bits usually fall down but there is still a fair bit there. so what do i do? wait it out or rack it into another fermenter? and i will be bottling if that makes a difference. also 1015 is still pretty high i was expecting 1010-1012 did i mash to hot?