Hi
Just brewed this last night as my second AG. the picture by the OP was just too good to pass!
my first AG was a bit of a disaster (way too much going on at the same time!) but this one went great. My first batch has a watery taste, I think its due to the fact I used 100% distilled water, so this time I made sure to buy some mineral water ( I live in China.. tap water is maybe not so good here - who knows!). The water was still pretty soft and didnt have a full list of minerals, so I added one tsp of gypsum and 1/4 tsp of table salt.
- used Cascade hops as couldn't get Sorachi
- used a the zest of one lemon steeped in a shot of vodka for a few hours (Also put the black pepper in here)
- my wife is from spain so she picked me up some Orange blossom honey from some orange farm in Valencia (nice! - and still have 0.5kg for next batch!)
I am VERY happy, I hit my OG bang on 1.061
I used the stovetop mash method, mashing on the stovetop in my 8G alu pot for an hour, using the gas to keep the temp steady.
since my lauter tun is only 5 gallons , with this amount of grain, I couldnt add more water to make the rest stage, so I just put on the gas and raised what I had to 170F.
Then poured it into my lauter tun and lautered out.
Took about 3 sparges but hit 6G then boiled for 60mins.
I made my first yeast starter, wasn't sure if it was really working but according to Palmer maybe this is because it works so fast. The guy gave me a discount on the 3711 yeast because the yeast was 5 months old already. I used a quart of wort from my previous batch and boiled it up the previous night, then cooled and pitched the yeast with a 1/4 tsp gypsum also since that wort was made with the distilled water. It was active enough. After pouring in the whole starter into the fermenter, after 9 hours, it was already developing a good head of krauesen and bubbling away. Photo attached! definately the nicest looking of my 4 batches, beautiful white head! I will keep you posted as it ferments.
Its pretty hot here, I pitched it at 75C , couldnt get it any lower as burned through all my ice stash making an ice bath for cooling. Seems to be working good enough so I'll keep it at this temp in my swamp cooler unless anyone thinks I should do otherwise.
happy brewin