EuBrew
Well-Known Member
So I finished up my pumpkin brew yesterday and it tasted fantastic going into the primary. I was shooting for a OG of 1.101 and came up way short registering a OG of 1.074 going into the primary. This isn't a bad thing since I am having a pumpkin brew taste off with a friend of mine on October 3rd. Projected FG is 1.027 with a 6.41% ABV. If I had hit my numbers I would have been over 9% and from what I've read the beer would have been really green given the 6 week timeline.
I think my efficiency (+- 52%) was screwed up because of my sparge. I was shooting for mash at 152 for 60 min, and it was pretty close, dropped to 150 by the end but the sparge is what I think got me in trouble. I extracted the first runnings into my boil kettle and that's the only vessel I had available for sparge water so it got transfered into a plastic bucket at 168 and dropped way off so I ended up sparging with closer to 4.5 gallons instead of the 3.33 called for to get the temp back up to 168. I had a bunch of liquid left in my mash tun by the time I collected my wort for the boil. I will definitely have a pot large enough to keep my sparge water at the correct temp for my next brew tomorrow.
I'm thinking 2 weeks in primary, 2 in secondary with spice tea if needed though it tasted awesome going into primary, and 2 weeks for bottle conditioning to be ready on October 3rd. Anyone have any suggestions on tweeking my proposed timeline?
The good news is I used a starter this time and the yeast looks angry, that blowoff tube has been full of foam all day and who knows what time it started burping!!
Ready for the Imperial Creme Brulee Stout tomorrow :rockin:
I think my efficiency (+- 52%) was screwed up because of my sparge. I was shooting for mash at 152 for 60 min, and it was pretty close, dropped to 150 by the end but the sparge is what I think got me in trouble. I extracted the first runnings into my boil kettle and that's the only vessel I had available for sparge water so it got transfered into a plastic bucket at 168 and dropped way off so I ended up sparging with closer to 4.5 gallons instead of the 3.33 called for to get the temp back up to 168. I had a bunch of liquid left in my mash tun by the time I collected my wort for the boil. I will definitely have a pot large enough to keep my sparge water at the correct temp for my next brew tomorrow.
I'm thinking 2 weeks in primary, 2 in secondary with spice tea if needed though it tasted awesome going into primary, and 2 weeks for bottle conditioning to be ready on October 3rd. Anyone have any suggestions on tweeking my proposed timeline?
The good news is I used a starter this time and the yeast looks angry, that blowoff tube has been full of foam all day and who knows what time it started burping!!
Ready for the Imperial Creme Brulee Stout tomorrow :rockin:
