Aberdeen Session Haus Ale

Finally got some vienna malt in so I brewed Biermuncher's Aberdeen Session Haus Ale this weekend. I'm still tweaking my brewhouse efficiency it has been around 73% but since I got a 'Barley Crusher' for my b-day I've been doing better. I started my 6 hour process about 9am on Sunday by preparing my water. My final volume I was was going for was 5.25G reduced from the original 11 gal. I let Beersmith do the scaling down after entering the original volumes and amounts. I was mashing 7.44# total grist with 9.3qts of water. I prepared the water with 3 grams of Gypsum and 3g of CaCl3. This addition is specific to my water so don't take the addition as a general recipe for this beer. This put my RA low enough to brew a 4ish SRM beer with my hardish water. I kept my Cl:SO4 ratio balanced since this is a balanced beer. One thing about adding brewing salts, I like to stir them up in only the mash water and let them sit 15 min, then stir again to dissolve. Heating will do that also but I like to dissolve them in room temp water first if I have the time. I test my water after I add the salts to make sure everything is where it is supposed to be. I also use a scale to weigh the salts instead of trying to pretend I know how much a tsp of the stuff weighs. Chemistry does not have to be hard but you should be as precise as possible with your measurements. We are only adding a small amount of these salts and adding a gram too much or too little by accident can really mess up the water. All this said, this Aberdeen Session Haus Ale is the lightest beer I've ever brewed and I'm hoping all is well. The taste before pitching was wonderful so I'm hopeful. All went well with the mash, I ended up a bit cooler at 152 though and I am using Notty for this brew so I'm sure it will be on the dry side. My experience with Notty is that it attenuates like a big dog. When all was said and done I put 5 gallons into my fermenter at 1.045. It should have been 1.040 but like I said I'm getting better eff. with crushing my own grains. I just couldn't bear to water it down to 1.040 but I probably should have. It's blubing away over in a dark corner as we speak. One of these days I'll up my starting volume to compensate for my terrible evaporation rate and trub issues so I can end up with 5.25 instead of 4.75-5 gal. Outside it is really hard in the lower temps and with the wind to guess at the evap. rate correctly.
I'm going probably try to brighten this batch with gelatin as per the recipe...

Until the next brew...

Attached Images