Bombo80

Recipes 

OK, I like to make up my own recipes. I will look at others to get ideas for what to use in my grain bill. Here is what I came up with for last Saturday's batch :

10# 6-row barley
1# 120*L caramel malt
1# Flaked barley
1/2# Choc. malt
1/2# Black patent malt
1/2# roasted barley
1/2# rice hulls
1oz No. Brewer hop pellets
2oz Williamette hop plugs

4 1/2 gal mash water - 136* treated with 2 tsp cal. chloride
stirred in crushed grains - protein rest - 126* - 30 minutes
raised temp to 156* - mash for 60 minutes
5 gal sparge water - 170* treated with 1 tsp Burton water salts
transfered to lauter tun - 5 minute rest
recirc. initial draw off, heated to 170*, until clear
fly sparged
I got my quart and pints mixed up. sparge draw off was at 1pt/min., not 1qt/min.. Still got a good amount of wort, 8 1/2 - 9 gal. Too much for my boil pot, had to boil it down for a while in two pots, then combine them, and continue. Had a 120 minute boil. No Brewer hops in for all 120 minutes, 1oz Williamette @ 30 min to go, 1oz Williamette @ 5 minutes to go.

Ended up with a 1.063 gravity. With so much wort (two pots) I didn't get a pre-boil reading.

Here is one issue : my sparge took too long, almost 90 minutes. I know it was partially my fault (pt/min VS. qt/min), but when all my sparge water was in, and mostly filtered through, the last pint of runoff was still at 1.030, and still very dark. I almost wished I would have put another 5 gallons of sparge water on the stove, to party-gyle it. I'm not sure what went wrong, or what I could have done differently, other than the obvious. (qt/min runoff) I know I could have a higher efficiency rate if I could have gotten my runoff down to a 1.008, like I have read in here. As it is I still managed just under a 70% rate.

I will have to step back and re-assess my brewing technique. I think I used too much water for the amount of grain I used. Next time I will bypass the protein rest, and go right to mash temp too.

Just thought I would share my experiences from Sat.. Any suggestions, or comments are always welcome.

Later,

Bombo

Bombo80

Recipes 

Now that I really think about it, my sparge runoff WAS at 1 qt/minute. I was confusing myself because I use a 1/2 gallon picture to catch the runoff, along with a quart measuring cup. SO, chalk it up to a senior moment. But the efficiency, and final runoff issues are still; present.

Got Trub?

Recipes 

2 comments. One I agree with you that you ended up with too large a volume. Not a big deal in a dark beer like this as boiling longer will have little affect. Two the older I get the more I wish this country was metric like the rest of the world. RIP Ronald Reagan...