Hope you all don't mind a long story...it may be helpful to any other new-to-Brew Boss users and I just felt like sharing after my less-than-stellar first attempt. If you want to stop after this first paragraph, here's the cliff notes: I can happily announce a way more successful 2nd brew day with my 15g Brew-Boss system w/ COFI as I start to dial in more accurate anticipated efficiencies and timing and with this system. Interested parties can read on...
This time I made a porter, something like a Black Butte clone, only with a slightly higher ABV. I should also note that I brewed this with REALLY old malt. It's all been sitting in sealed bags, in a black storage bin, in my dark/cool basement since my youngest son was born 3 years ago! The 10# of 2-row was unmilled, but specialty grains were already milled. It all looked/smelled/tasted good to me, so I thought why not try it, especially since this session was really an exercise in dialing in numbers. I got new hops/yeast of course, but I thought it would also make an interesting experiment to see if the age of the malt was detectable.
In the interest of increasing my efficiency over last time (but at the risk of negatively affecting recirculation), I started by tightening up my Cereal Killer mill gap to around .030" with feeler gauges. I conditioned the 10# of base malt, waited 10-15 minutes, then milled about as slow as my Harbor Freight D-handle drill would go under load. I mixed in the rest of the grains, except for 12 oz of my roasted grain as a late addition. My plan was to stir this in halfway through the 60 minute mash to experiment with perceived roastiness and astringency. Some folks attest to smoother roast flavor with either cold steeping beforehand and adding to the mashed wort pre-boil or just doing a late mash addition. To counter potential flow issues with the finer milling and the 1# of flaked barley in the bill, I also added a handful of rice hulls to the grist...I usually do anyway regardless of the bill when recirculating the mash.
Next, I treated/heated 7.5 gallons of filtered tap water with 3g calcium chloride and 2g chalk. When it reached around 120F, I removed and reserved 1 gallon for a pour-over sparge. I continued to heat the remaining 6.5 gal to 154F strike temp (152F target). I lowered the COFI basket with grains into the kettle, removed the cover, stirred the thick mash well, and nailed the single infusion mash temp of 152F. My PH measured 5.5, which also was my exact target. 30 minutes in, I stirred in the 500L chocolate malt. After that, I stirred once more at 15 min left and noticed I had to slow down the recirc a little toward the end of the mash. The level in my sight glass was progressively going down with the valve opened most of the way (MP-15 pump). I slowed it down some and got it equalized at around 3.5 gallons in the sight glass with around 10 minutes left. Fortunately, I didn't cavitate or scorch the wort.
After a 10 minute mash-out step at 168F, I heated up the reserved sparge water with an electric tea kettle, put the COFI cover back on with the lift ring, hoisted the basket out, squeezed, sparged a 1/2 gal at a time, squeezed, and finally collected a sample after I got all I could out of the COFI. My target pre-boil volume was 6.4 gallons but ended up with 6.5...might need to reduce my .32 qt/# grain absorption rate slightly or squeeze less. Also, I was targeting a preboil OG of 1.055 at 70% eff (according to Brewer's Friend) and I measured closer to 1.060 at 75F. I was really just happy that I didn't need to add any makeup DME. The wort tasted good and the color looked great! Maybe the finer milling helped with conversion and the old grains will have no effect on the final outcome...crossing my fingers.
Next, I prepared my steam condenser while the wort heated up to a boil, and I dropped in my 4"X10" hop filter. When I built this kettle, I added a couple stainless u-bolts through the kettle wall up high, so I can hang it to the side just under my lid and above the element. I also added a weldless TC port to my lid so I can drop in hops & other additions without taking it off during the boil.
Previously, when doing my first wet run tests, I found that around 30% power was enough to maintain a gentle boil. While this is true, the boil-off rate I previously calculated was somehow off...I'll have to revisit this later and decide if I want to increase power level, or decrease anticipated boil-off rate. Considering how thick my mash was, I think I'll probably go with the former to keep more water in the kettle when mashing 5 gal batches with the COFI. After about 30 minutes, I could see that I was not trending toward my anticipated post-boil volume. The sight glass showed around 6.35 gal...only .15 gal boiled off after 30 minutes?!? I originally figured 0.6 gal/hr, and was looking at around half that so far...that wasn't going to cut it.
So, I manually adjusted the power level and steam condenser spray water a little at a time, every 6-8 minutes. I was up to 40% power at the end of 60 minutes with effluent coming out at around 120F and the sight glass showed just a fuzz over my target post-boil volume of 5.8 gal...it was more like 5.9 gal. I figured that was close enough since my preboil OG was a little high.
So I collected a sample, added the flame out hops from my recipe, dropped in my CuS.S. "Short and Stocky" chiller, and connected the swirl boss. I chilled/measured my sample and post-boil gravity was around 1.066 at 75F...looks like I can bump up BH efficiency in Brewer's Friend to around 72-73% for beers around this size...works for me.
I next started the recirc through the swirl-boss and chiller water. It got down to 62 pretty darn quick (didn't time this, but maybe 15 min?) and I collected around 18 gallons of cleanup/laundry water in that time. After it was down to my pitch temp, I killed the water/pump and did a 30 min rest step to get any break material to collect.
Finally, I transferred the chilled wort to my ferm bucket and I was a little short of my volume there. Expected 5.5 and got closer to 5.25. There must have been more break that I anticipated or something. I'll just bump up my volume loss number by a quart. Better to end up with too much I suppose.
Next, I tried to hit it with some bottled O2, but of course it ran out literally a few seconds after turning the valve. I swear, there is ALWAYS at least one hiccup no matter how prepared I think I am! However, some O2 was still leaking very slowly out of the stone, so I just kept in in there for a couple minutes.
After that, I pitched 2 satchels of S-04 rehydrated in 75F preboiled/filtered water, closed her up, and shook it for a minute for good measure. Man, I don't really miss shaking up the bucket, but I guess I can always use a little extra exercise. Then I moved into into my 62F ferm chamber with a blow-off tube.
That's when I realized that I also forgot to drill a thermowell into the lid of this newer second fermenter. Oops...I'll just tape the probe to the side this time! Anyway, 18 hours later it is already bubbling away and 5 points down according to my Tilt! Cheers!!
![Craft A Brew - Safale S-04 Dry Yeast - English Ale Dry Yeast - For English and American Ales and Hard Apple Ciders - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [3 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41vpOQ2OvTL._SL500_.jpg)
