My Triumphant Return!

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limulus

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Well I brewed my return batch Friday night. It was a mini mash kit from AHB.

My mash tun worked very well. But, I definitely need a better way to get the water into it. Lifting 6.5 gal of 165F water and pouring it is not as easy as I thought. I think I may be adding a valve to my BK. I have a 1000w heat stick coming next week that I hope will warm water to mash temp. But I think I may need to upgrade that to 1500w:
DSC_1272.jpg


I used a bag and no sparge. The AHB mini mash consisted of Maris Otter, Chocolate Malt, Crystal 120L, Golden Naked Oats and Flaked Oats (total ~3.5lbs):
DSC_1280.jpg


Getting the wort to the BK was easy. I added 2lbs Ex Light DME and 2lbs Amber DME to the BK:
DSC_1281.jpg


The burner brought the wort to a boil in no time:
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I guess this is my real welcome back to brewing. Even in a 10gal BK, I still boiled over:(
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The immersible chiller worked like a champ! The water coming out of the hose was still near 60F but I managed to get the wort down to about 74F in around 30min. I probably should have used a ladle to scoop the hot break off the surface.
DSC_1288.jpg


I used a Wyeast smack pack and activated that 14hrs before pitching. The pack was about to pop when I pitched it.

My LP burner is a Brinkmann 100,000 BTU unit from Home Depot. I am very happy with this. It got the water up to mash and boiling temp very quickly
DSC_1284.jpg
 
I wouldn't recommend scooping the hot break - this decreases the amount of protein in the beer and reduces head and body. You'll just have to play with your burner until you're familiar enough with it that you don't get a boil over. I only takes about 5 minutes for the hot break to subside again, just be patient, turn the heat down/off, and stir until it's reincorporated.

And here's something I've been doing a lot lately: I think a lot of people have a tendency to add their hops while the wort is coming to a boil. Why not, just so you don't have to remember the first addition? But I find that the hot break will push all the hop particles to the surface, they'll get stuck to the side of the kettle, and then you'll wonder if your bitterness calculations are off. Instead, I get through the hot break and then add my hops and start the timer.

Side question: what's the PSI on your burner's regulator?
 
Recipes,
The regulator says 10PSIG. I don't know what the G means. It is probably so obvious that I'll feel like a moron when I find out.
 
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