Brewing this on Wed. MMM Christmas

10Lbs American 2-Row
8oz. Crystal 120L
8oz. Caravienne
4oz. Honey Malt
2oz. Black Roast Barley
2oz. Special B


1oz Glacier @ 60min.
1oz. Willamette @ 1min.

1 tsp Ginger @ 3 min.
1 tsp All-Spice @ 3 min.
2 tsp Cinnamon @ 3 min.

Whirflock @ 5 min.

Mash @ 155F for 60 min.
Ferment @ 66F for 10 days
Secondary @ 66F for 14 days
Keg Age @ 66@ for 60 days.

OG 1.061
FG ~1.016
ABV 5.8%
SRM 17.3
IBUs 31.5

I will be using the yeast cake from this brew in a couple weeks to ferment a 1.078 OG Rye ale.

Just to be on the safe and proactive side, I am making a starter for this brew as well.

Question...wont the yeast cake with the spices change/alter the taste of the RYE you plan to toss on the cake? Is that what your going for??? I like a lot of different flavors so it sounds good to me.

I think I will probably end up washing the yeast, once I get 5.25 gallons of 1.078 brew on it, the difference will probably be negligible. I have another yeast pack, so I could make another starter... who knows.

Mashing in now... only my second time running my HERMS, so we will see how good my notes were from the first batch!

SO far, so good. The temperature differentials worked out well... strike water temp +7 gave me a heated tun and strike water at the proper temp within 3 minutes. I then ran the recirculation at mash temp +3 degrees and held 156F during the mash. Mashout ran with the temp setting at 173F and it heated the mash to 168 in 20 minutes.
I also have my volumes worked out precisely for this system. I needed to collect 6.6 gallons to boil down to my 5.3 for the fermentor. I calculated that I would need about 8 gallons between my mash and sparge water to collect that ammount... I need to add about a gallon for what I cannot reach in my HLT and what is left in the HERMS coil after all is said and done. I started with 9 gallons and ended up putting 6.6 gallons in the keggle with about 1 quart left in the mash tun before it ran dry!

Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.047

Post-Boil Gravity: 1.059

It took about 4 hours to get fermentation, now, about 20 hours in, it has a 4" krausen and is bubbling away. Next week it will go into the secondary and I will get another brew into the primary.

Anyone ever had an issue using whirflock, whereas you have a TON of stuf precipitate out in the boil and lost about .5-1 gallon in the keggle due to all the crud? I have never used whirflock before this brew, and I have never had such a large ammount of "muck" at the bottom.