After much errand running with SWMBO on my vacation day, I finally got my chance to brew. I made Orfy's Boddington clone, so hopefully it will be yummo (sorry for the Rachel Ray there)
Got my bag o' grains out from the LHBS and just for fun, thought I would run them through my shiny new BC mill. I got the grains on the same visit as the mill, but before I decided to drop the bones for the mill.
What a huge freaking difference! Looking at the grains before they went into the BC, it looked the the husks were just cracked, with barely any flour visible. Afterwards, I had shredded husks and a ton of flour. I could hardly believe the difference, so I was expecting a huge increase in eff. from my previous 2 AG batches.
WRONG! I got my strike water ready, and dumped it into my MLT to warm everything up before adding the grain. Guess I need to learn to read a thermometer, cuz after adding approx. 12# grains to 18 qts. of water, I ended up mashing at 158f, instead of the planned for 154.
After mashing for 45 minutes, I batch sparge out, and somehow end up with an extra 2/3 of a gallon in the boil kettle. So I ended up with 7 gals. of 1.033 into the kettle and 5.5 gals of 1.045 into the fermenter (after adding an extra 6 ozs. of DME as a late addition).
To top it all off, I had to toss a fermenter today because the lid started to mold and mildew while it was closed up with a gallon of StarSan in the bottom. Then I dropped the bowl I had used to rehydrate my Notty in, and ended up with a small shard of glass in my foot.
Good thing I love this hobby!
PS. I am going to brew a Fat Tire clone tomorrow, and an extract PA on Sunday. Wish me luck!
Got my bag o' grains out from the LHBS and just for fun, thought I would run them through my shiny new BC mill. I got the grains on the same visit as the mill, but before I decided to drop the bones for the mill.
What a huge freaking difference! Looking at the grains before they went into the BC, it looked the the husks were just cracked, with barely any flour visible. Afterwards, I had shredded husks and a ton of flour. I could hardly believe the difference, so I was expecting a huge increase in eff. from my previous 2 AG batches.
WRONG! I got my strike water ready, and dumped it into my MLT to warm everything up before adding the grain. Guess I need to learn to read a thermometer, cuz after adding approx. 12# grains to 18 qts. of water, I ended up mashing at 158f, instead of the planned for 154.
After mashing for 45 minutes, I batch sparge out, and somehow end up with an extra 2/3 of a gallon in the boil kettle. So I ended up with 7 gals. of 1.033 into the kettle and 5.5 gals of 1.045 into the fermenter (after adding an extra 6 ozs. of DME as a late addition).
To top it all off, I had to toss a fermenter today because the lid started to mold and mildew while it was closed up with a gallon of StarSan in the bottom. Then I dropped the bowl I had used to rehydrate my Notty in, and ended up with a small shard of glass in my foot.
Good thing I love this hobby!
PS. I am going to brew a Fat Tire clone tomorrow, and an extract PA on Sunday. Wish me luck!