First PM of awfulness! (Can't wait to try it!)

This is a long one, sorry in advance! And as a preface to the post, I know it's not ruined, and I'm going along with whatever came my way!

OK, so it wasn't THAT horrible. I started off feeling pretty good, I did a 2.5 gal test batch of the dunkelweizen in my sig, with some changes based on what my LHBS had/did not have. The biggest OOPS on the grains was me thinking I would just round up the .125 lbs of CarafaII to .25 to make it easier on measuring and then only use what I needed. That was before I put all the grains together at the store and milled them... no way to separate out the extra CarafaII, hopefully it isn't too burnt/toasty. At least it will be darker, I was concerned it would be too light. I also was going to throw in some rice hulls with this, just in case, so here is hoping I don't get a stuck sparge.

SWMBO did let me pick up a 3 gal glass carboy to do smaller batches in. The LHBS forgot to charge me for it!!!!! Of course I went back and told them about their $45 mistake, and the ended up giving me the thing for what I assume is their cost. Honesty does pay off

Next, everything was going to plan when I started mash prep. Had some hot water in the new 5 gal MLT to preheat, had the water on the stove heating to the right temp per BeerSmith. I drained the water from the MLT a little early, realised it cooled down (left the lid off) and quickly jumped onto BeerSmith to adjust for a no-preheat MLT. Got my water to the 170F required, dumped it in and check the temp. Everything was fine, EXCEPT that I misread the thermometer and thought I was 10F too high, and proceeded to add some cold water to bring them temp down. THEN I realised what I had done, and had to boil some water and bring it back up. It was about 10 mins before I had it close enough to the target of 155F (153F was my actual), and said it will be fine and let it go. All the while, my braid keeps floating up!

So I crack open a Pete's Wicked Ale, as I am out of HB to RDWHAHB with. Guess that makes it RDWHACB That's where I'm at now, let see how the rest goes in 35 mins.

I'm kind of smiling here, but that really sounds like a typical brew day!

I've been using the same false bottom for a couple of years now, and the same MLT so I think I usually hit my temps. BUT, there are always those "oh ****" moments that either make me do something stupid (like add cold water to a mash that's actually at the right temperature) or send me running back on the forum to ask a question!

It seems like it's going ok for you so far. Hopefully, your floating braid will drain ok.

Sparge went just fine, I ended up with way more water than I needed thanks to my earlier screw up. I'm boiling down to my boil volume before I start the hop addition.

OK got it boiled down, went for 30 mins before adding the hops, then boiled for another hour. Looks like I'm right down to about where I need to be volume wise. Got it in the sink with ice water, so we shall see how it comes out with the OG.

Good luck, man!

So is it possible to figure out gravity if you have one reading of your wort and then add water to the wort? So if I had 2.1 gal of 1.061 and added 0.4 gal of H2O, would that work out to 1.051?

Figured that using ((2.1/2.5)*1.061) + ((0.4/2.5)*1.000)

The water dilution tool on Beersmith agrees with your calculations.

Yay! Didn't realise BeerSmith could do that for me too! The 1.061 is actually going to be more like 1.063 accounting for the temp at time of reading for the wort. The corrected math puts me more in the 1.053 range, which is quite good, only .003 off from the projected amount, and that can be accounted for in the ~0.2 gal I spilled on the floor during transfer (OOPS!).

It's sitting there and bubbling away nicely now. This is my first glass carboy experience, so I haven't yet seen the wonders of fermentation first hand. This is really cool! I put a blow off tube on there just in case last night but it doesn't look like I'll need it unless it takes off even more. Got a good 1 inch krausen on top right now and the bubbles are flying out of the blow off tube

After all the stuff I managed to screw up on this, if it comes out anywhere close to good this beer will definitely get made in a larger batch. I didn't manage to cool it quite well enough, had some issues with keeping the water in my sinka nd lost 2/3 of my ice before the thing was below 120F! Luckily I kept a bag in reserve, go it down to 90, stuck it in the fridge until it was down to 80, then transferred and pitched.

Gremlyn1 said:

The 1.061 is actually going to be more like 1.063 accounting for the temp at time of reading for the wort.

Click to expand...

Beersmith can do that for you too, its under "Hydrometer Adjust"....

Otherwise, congrats on the brew.

Good man for telling the LHBS about their oversight. Karma would have made your brews taste like a$$ for awhile had you not reported the error. I commend you.