PvtSkippy
Well-Known Member
(This could probably go into Drunken Ramblings...)
Well, perhaps not total fail, but the end result wasn't what I had hoped for.
My wife (I got a good one. Yes she has a sister, but I wouldn't wish her on my worst enemy) bought me one of Midwest Supplies MLT conversions, probably so I'd stop whining about being restricted to extract brewing. Today was it's inaugural voyage, figured I'd start simple and try my hand at BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde. A beautiful day to brew, to be sure... 65 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.
I read, re-read and printed Bobby_M's AG primer, had my BeerSmtih brewsheet on a clipboard, had hops premeasured and bagged, Irish Moss laid out, the carboy was sanitized, backup tank of propane at the ready. I even decided to try out Jamil's secret weapon of tying the little goat statue from a Ayinger's Celebrator bottle onto my MLT. Fat lot of good that did me.
Dumped the required amount of water into the MLT, let it heat up and dumped the grain at 166F. The mash went well, only lost a couple degrees. Vorlaufed and drained the runnings into my kettle. Started the batch sparge and was just having a good ole time. Ended up with right at seven gallons in the kettle (I have a wide, fat kettle and tend to boil off more than normal). I was really digging the whole AG thing. Drew off a sample to measure my pre-boil gravity and started the boil.
Well, that's where the sinking feeling started. Dropped the hydrometer into the sample. BeerSmith said I should be around 1.034... "Hmm, that's odd, I'm at 1.022. WTF?" Checked the temp, nope, that's spot on 60F. Double checked the hydrometer, spun it, set it on a level table... 1.022.
Rather than start a "Where did I screw up?" thread, I'll tell you exactly where I screwed up... I was following my brewsheet which told me to sparge at 168F. Well, rather than taking into account that my grain was colder and that my water needed to be hotter to raise the entire mass to 168F, my stupid ass sparged with 168F water. Needless to say, my efficiency sucked...sucked to the point where I don't even want to calculate it as I'd probably just hang my head in shame. I suppose the bright spot in all of this is that I know what I did wrong and can correct it next time.
BierMuncher, sir, I apologize for butchering your recipe. Hopefully it will still be tasty, even at 2.9% ABV. And Bobby_M, thanks for the guidance, even if I was too thick to follow your directions more closely. I'll try harder next time.
Well, perhaps not total fail, but the end result wasn't what I had hoped for.
My wife (I got a good one. Yes she has a sister, but I wouldn't wish her on my worst enemy) bought me one of Midwest Supplies MLT conversions, probably so I'd stop whining about being restricted to extract brewing. Today was it's inaugural voyage, figured I'd start simple and try my hand at BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde. A beautiful day to brew, to be sure... 65 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.
I read, re-read and printed Bobby_M's AG primer, had my BeerSmtih brewsheet on a clipboard, had hops premeasured and bagged, Irish Moss laid out, the carboy was sanitized, backup tank of propane at the ready. I even decided to try out Jamil's secret weapon of tying the little goat statue from a Ayinger's Celebrator bottle onto my MLT. Fat lot of good that did me.
Dumped the required amount of water into the MLT, let it heat up and dumped the grain at 166F. The mash went well, only lost a couple degrees. Vorlaufed and drained the runnings into my kettle. Started the batch sparge and was just having a good ole time. Ended up with right at seven gallons in the kettle (I have a wide, fat kettle and tend to boil off more than normal). I was really digging the whole AG thing. Drew off a sample to measure my pre-boil gravity and started the boil.
Well, that's where the sinking feeling started. Dropped the hydrometer into the sample. BeerSmith said I should be around 1.034... "Hmm, that's odd, I'm at 1.022. WTF?" Checked the temp, nope, that's spot on 60F. Double checked the hydrometer, spun it, set it on a level table... 1.022.
Rather than start a "Where did I screw up?" thread, I'll tell you exactly where I screwed up... I was following my brewsheet which told me to sparge at 168F. Well, rather than taking into account that my grain was colder and that my water needed to be hotter to raise the entire mass to 168F, my stupid ass sparged with 168F water. Needless to say, my efficiency sucked...sucked to the point where I don't even want to calculate it as I'd probably just hang my head in shame. I suppose the bright spot in all of this is that I know what I did wrong and can correct it next time.
BierMuncher, sir, I apologize for butchering your recipe. Hopefully it will still be tasty, even at 2.9% ABV. And Bobby_M, thanks for the guidance, even if I was too thick to follow your directions more closely. I'll try harder next time.