Distracted Small Batch Brewing

After 3 small batch brews under my belt i dove into the fourth one. I feel I was a bit over confident. In Brewing a BBS Smoked wheat I was short on my sparge water by ~2 litres. I noticed this at the very beginning of the boil and tried to salvage by heating some water really quickly and washing the remaining grains. After the cooling the wort and putting in the fermenter i ended up having to add a half gallon of water to get back to the 1 gallon mark.

In an attempt to redeem myself i tried brewing another BBS kit Chocolate Maple Porter a few days later. I hit the money on the water. But burnt grains when mashing out.

I know i have altered the taste from what the recipe calls for. I'd just like to hear your thoughts on what i can expect. Both batches are at the 2 week mark and i plan to cold crash a few days before the 3 week mark and bottle thereafter.

No more late night brewing after a 12 hour shift.

Not quite sure how the beers will turn out, they could possibly be just fine. For the Smoked Wheat, If after topping-off the fermenter with water you hit the original gravity, then it should turn out great. The Maple porter may just have a slight burnt taste, but since it's a Porter, it may not be something you would even notice...or it may be an added good flavor that you didn't expect. Time will tell on both. Let us know how the beers turn out.

I do small batches too, and one thing I'd recommend for your next batch is to get yourself a small 2 gallon beverage cooler and a mesh bag for mashing. It can be difficult to mash on the stovetop, and the cooler will save you from a lot of stress, for very little money. Try a thrift store or hardware store like Home Depot for good prices on the cooler.

forestGeek said:

I do small batches too, and one thing I'd recommend for your next batch is to get yourself a small 2 gallon beverage cooler and a mesh bag for mashing. It can be difficult to mash on the stovetop, and the cooler will save you from a lot of stress, for very little money. Try a thrift store or hardware store like Home Depot for good prices on the cooler.

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I found my 5 gallon Igloo coolers at Big Lots dirt cheap and they had plenty of 2 and 3 gallon coolers as well. Not sure if they stock them this time of year, but it's worth a look if you have one near by.

After my second failure with the porter I began a mini mash tun build. I brewed a rye PA (also BBS) with the cooler and a grain bag. It was heavenly bliss. Only lost two degrees for the hour and was a breeze for cleanup. I read on another post here about putting the entire pot in the oven during the mash. I think I'll try that next. I plan on investing in testing equipment soon. A refractometer I feel would be best.

I'll get back in 4 weeks on the outcome.

Smoked wheat Ale came out great. A lot better than I expected. Now my mantra is when in doubt wait it out. Next week the chocolate maple porter should be ready for tasting.

Burning the grains on mash out definitely affected the taste of the chocolate maple porter. Grainy after taste. Not so bueno. This is definitely a batch to give away.

how high was the temp when mashing out the Choc Maple Porter?

I picked up a 2 Gallon Mash Tun, really like it so far for both Mash and Sparge process.

169F was the temp when i pulled it out of the oven.
150F was the temp when i put it in the oven.