Pickngrin
Well-Known Member
Today I cleared the cobwebs off of my brewing equipment and brewed for the first time in years - a pale ale. It was my first time brewing outdoors (I picked up a turkey fryer last year and finally put it to use).
My grain bill was 8 pounds of Maris Otter, 1 pound of crystal 20L. I mashed at roughly 152 degrees in my 10 gallon Gott water cooler. 60 minute boil. I collected about 5.5 gallons. Whereas I used to use my Phil's sparge arm, this time I tried batch sparging (water was ~ 180 degrees). I tried calibrating my Taylor thermometer but could not get consistency between adjustments in ice bath and boiling water. Couldn't find my 2nd thermometer to use as a reference. I actually got a stuck mash and wound up sucking on the tubing to get the flow going -- had to do this a number of times but eventually it flowed. I recirculated in the beginning but wound up getting particles in the wort and after the hassles with the stuck mash did not want to play with it too much more.
O.G. was about 1.046 (to this day, I don't trust my eyes when reading the hydrometer) -- lower than expected. I wound up with less in the primary than I expected (it's a 6 gallon carboy, and the wort is well below the curve of the bottle. There are about 2.5 inches of trub on the bottom. After spending so many hours working on this today (I felt like there was a learning curve in starting back up after not brewing for so long), I was pretty disappointed to wind up with what seems like such a low yield and low gravity.
I'm not sure what my question is... I think I just wanted some feedback on what I feel like was a compromised brew....
thanks
My grain bill was 8 pounds of Maris Otter, 1 pound of crystal 20L. I mashed at roughly 152 degrees in my 10 gallon Gott water cooler. 60 minute boil. I collected about 5.5 gallons. Whereas I used to use my Phil's sparge arm, this time I tried batch sparging (water was ~ 180 degrees). I tried calibrating my Taylor thermometer but could not get consistency between adjustments in ice bath and boiling water. Couldn't find my 2nd thermometer to use as a reference. I actually got a stuck mash and wound up sucking on the tubing to get the flow going -- had to do this a number of times but eventually it flowed. I recirculated in the beginning but wound up getting particles in the wort and after the hassles with the stuck mash did not want to play with it too much more.
O.G. was about 1.046 (to this day, I don't trust my eyes when reading the hydrometer) -- lower than expected. I wound up with less in the primary than I expected (it's a 6 gallon carboy, and the wort is well below the curve of the bottle. There are about 2.5 inches of trub on the bottom. After spending so many hours working on this today (I felt like there was a learning curve in starting back up after not brewing for so long), I was pretty disappointed to wind up with what seems like such a low yield and low gravity.
I'm not sure what my question is... I think I just wanted some feedback on what I feel like was a compromised brew....
thanks