Well, it was a rough one. I was bottling one batch and brewing another to pitch onto the first batch's yeast cake.
The bottling went really smoothly, and I got just over 59 bottles out of the batch.
The batch I was brewing had a pretty simple grain bill, except that I was using about 3 lbs. of raw spelt. I read a bunch about how to handle the spelt. Some said a single infusion mash works fine, others said you need to do a cereal mash. I went for the cereal mash, since I had never done one before. Things were going pretty well until the lauter/sparge.
Stuck.
ugh.
And not just kind of stuck and then OK after re-vorlaufing. Like stuck for real. Like no way it is getting unstuck.
A huge mess, a grain bag, another large piece of cheese-cloth, and a lot of frustration later, I finally got some wort in a kettle and on a burner.
When they say using some rice hulls with spelt after a cereal mash is a good idea, they mean it.
Luckily, my scrambling efforts paid off and my OG going into the fermenter was only a little short of the estimated OG. It got pitched onto a sour yeast cake with brewery Vivant & Jolly Pumpkin dregs, so it'll still attenuate down to 1.000 or lower to bring the ABV to about 7.5% or so. I'm perfectly happy with that.
Easily my most frustrating brew day in a long time. Last time I had this much go wrong was when I first started trying BIAB. That's probably three years ago, so I guess I was due for a disaster.
In the end, everything is fine. My back and feet hurt a little more than normal, but the beer should still be good.
The bottling went really smoothly, and I got just over 59 bottles out of the batch.
The batch I was brewing had a pretty simple grain bill, except that I was using about 3 lbs. of raw spelt. I read a bunch about how to handle the spelt. Some said a single infusion mash works fine, others said you need to do a cereal mash. I went for the cereal mash, since I had never done one before. Things were going pretty well until the lauter/sparge.
Stuck.
ugh.
And not just kind of stuck and then OK after re-vorlaufing. Like stuck for real. Like no way it is getting unstuck.
A huge mess, a grain bag, another large piece of cheese-cloth, and a lot of frustration later, I finally got some wort in a kettle and on a burner.
When they say using some rice hulls with spelt after a cereal mash is a good idea, they mean it.
Luckily, my scrambling efforts paid off and my OG going into the fermenter was only a little short of the estimated OG. It got pitched onto a sour yeast cake with brewery Vivant & Jolly Pumpkin dregs, so it'll still attenuate down to 1.000 or lower to bring the ABV to about 7.5% or so. I'm perfectly happy with that.
Easily my most frustrating brew day in a long time. Last time I had this much go wrong was when I first started trying BIAB. That's probably three years ago, so I guess I was due for a disaster.
In the end, everything is fine. My back and feet hurt a little more than normal, but the beer should still be good.
