captaineriv
Well-Known Member
It's over and I'm waiting for fermentation to begin. Things didn't go 100% as planned but hopefully it will turn out decent. For my mash/lauter tun, I use a modified orange Rubbermaid 5-gallon round water cooler. The starch conversion went well according to the iodine test. The only problem was mashing out. I poured at least a gallon of near-boiling water to the mash tun (until it was full) and still could not get the water above 162 degrees (from 153). Maybe next time, I'll use a 5-gallon stockpot as my mash tun and the Rubbermaid as my lauter tun, and add direct heat to the pot to mash out. The only tricky part would be transferring the mash, grains and all, to the Rubbermaid lauter tun. If anyone has advice on this, let me know. Additionally the SG of my unboiled sweet wort (about 6.5 gallons) was 1.030. I used 7.5 lbs Klages, 1 lb. crystal malt, .75 lbs chocolate malt, .25 lbs. black malt, and .5 lbs cara-pils. The SG seemed a little high. Is 1.030 acceptable? I did however end up with the expected post-boil SG of 1.052. Just thought I'd share the experience and ask a couple of questions.
captaineriv
captaineriv