It's been a long day but I want to at least post some thoughts and maybe a slew of pictures. I'm exhausted and on my 3rd homebrew clone of Maine Beer Company's A Tiny Beautiful Ale. So here goes.
First snag in the day was when I looked in the kettle and found it stained. Last I left it was with Starsan so this confused me. I had to break out Barkeepers friend to re-clean what was supposed to be a clean kettle. I also had to throw out all the containers that had that batch of Starsan and reclean them. This would hurt me later. It was at this time that I realized working with a LARGE kettle is bothersome. Even more so when that kettle is tethered with 2 cables. Something to get used to.
Next I decide to adjust my grain mill from .049 to .039 crush. No big deal just another task. I consulted Beersmith and Priceless BIAB and decide that 8.3 gallons of mash water is needed. I measure out 2 gallons of distilled then add my tap water.
Something odd happened here. For some reason I thought my sight glass was off. I even took a picture and planned to post about it. But looking back, the picture seems correct. But this doesn't explain the results at the end. But this stops me from measuring volumes since I falsely assumed the sight glass was wrong and I had no other means to measure.
My next mistake is heating the water. I heat to 167 instead of 157. When I do mash I'm way over. I start to stir a bunch and also start the whirlpool. I set the temp for 154 and try to burn off heat by stirring. But I figure I have to just push forward.
Next is the biggest mistake. I think the recirc is going well so I start to tackle re-cleaning my carboys that had that batch of Starsan that stained the kettle. During this time I hear hissing and notice a ton of steam. Yes, my element is burning. The grain bed was now restricting the flow and the element was dry under the bed. I shut down everything (including my timer) and wait it out. The element finally calms down and the level is back to normal. Now I figure out I need to have the flow much slower. This might not be as big an issue with a 10g batch.
So I know for sure that I've burned the wort but the good news is the element is still working. I read some posts on the topic and I consider myself lucky in that regard. I turn the recirc down to a very small amount and let it go. I start a new timer using my phone based on an estimate. I play with the flow a while until I find the right amount. But I notice the wort is just going straight down. Eventually I add a hose to help with the recirc. This creates a slight whirlpool visible on the top. I finally leave it alone but I never stray from the kettle and I keep a close eye on the sight glass.
Mash ends and I bump the temp to 168. I realize this is kind of silly since mashing out is not needed. So I just hoist the grains up and go to manual mode and dial in 90% on the heat. A minor error here. The element quickly heats to boil before the mash drains. Turns out 60% is enough. But this is a factor of doing a 5g batch with an element that can handle 10g batches. So I will need to adjust going forward.
I wrestle a bit with hosting the mash. But Tim (the owner) suggest using the lid. I finally manage to get the basket up and the lid under it. I then disconnect and bring both over to my driveway so the basket can drain. I adjust the power to the element to get a decent boil. Add my hops and start the timer. One odd thing I notice is the boil is centered on the element. I have two patches of hop oils to either side of the element. I debated trying to whirlpool but I quickly decide not to. Not a big deal just odd.
Everything goes well from here for a while. At boil end I start whirlpool. It took me a while to figure out how to get the hoses connected without spilling. This is a new dangerous aspect. These hoses can have very hot wort so you have to be careful.
Now I'm into new territory of using a plate chiller. It takes me a while to plan out how to move the tubes. I turn the pump off and wait for the wort to settle. I'm not sure what to think here. You can't see what is going on so it's hard to say when everything is "settled". It might be about 10 minutes before I can't SEE anything moving but who knows what is really going on.
By the time I get the courage to start the pump into the chiller the wort is down to 177. I take a thermapen to test the wort as it goes into the carboy. Considering how my day is going I expect that the wort will melt my Better Bottle carboy. But I'm surprised to see the wort coming out of the chiller at 68. I used a prechiller inside a cooler of ice because I live in Texas but I probably didn't need it. It hasn't been hot here yet. But still the results are amazing. I guess these plate chillers do work. Now I just have to watch the level as the wort drains. I'm trying to avoid the last disaster of killing my pump.
I'm still not sure what went wrong but as the drain is near the end I'm not near 5g in the fermenter. I end up with about 4.75. To make matters worse the fermenter appears to have tons of trub. One good bit of news is that I can see serious trub in the tubing before my plate chiller so I stopped at the exact right time. But I can see all kinds of break or something in the fermenter so it isn't all good news. And to top it all off my gravity readings are low.
After that is clean up. This is where I realize how heavy a 20g pot is. I also realize how hard it is to clean a burnt element. It will take some getting used to so I can figure out how best to do this. It's also very awkward having a kettle with "holes" in it. I don't like to dump toxic cleaners into my driveway or lawn so lugging the kettle to the sink while it has Barkeepers Friend in it was messy. And while the plate chiller was great, I ended up using more water to chill. I saved much of it so I can could clean later but it was a new experience.
Whew. Now I'm too tired to post the pictures but at least I have some to share later. I won't make the same mistake on the element again. But I'm really worried about the volumes being so far off. It could be any number of things. One thing I might try different is to put the grains into the basket first then add that to the water. I think that might cut down on all the dust. For the volume issue? I first might look at upping the evaporation rate from 1.5 to 1.75. And I might look to bump the trub loss calculation up from .5 gallons. I haven't decided if I want to do 5 gallons again or jump to 10 gallons.
Just writing this novel has worn me out. And the blinking ads for Stout Tanks and Kettles is beginning to bother me. Time for sleep before I really begin to ramble. Hopefully I will at least wake to fermentation although I don't expect the taste to be very good. Cheers everyone.
