e lo
Well-Known Member
Yep. This was my 6th batch, and I decided ~2 batches ago it was time to take the plunge. Took a while to round up the equipment, but I was finally ready to do it today. I brewed Old Pumpculiar, with a couple of changes (some accidental i.e. addition of the sugar and molasses ~15 minutes early, some to use the hops I had on hand.)
The mash was ... um ... an adventure. I made my MLT out of a 60 qt Igloo Max Cold Ice Cube cooler. For my "manifold," I used a SS braid attached to a 1/2" copper T, attached to a ~5" piece of 1/2" copper attached to a 90 degree CPVC elbow joining to my bulkhead fitting. Would probably have worked fantastically, except for the fact that I was counting on friction to keep the 5" copper extension connected to the elbow (which is why I used the CPVC.) As I discovered when I began the vorlauff prior to sparging, that wasn't quite sufficent. It took almost a gallon for the runnings to clear (or at least, I thought they were clear), and then they slowed to a teeny tiny trickle. Given that I'd never done this before and didn't have anybody watching over my shoulder to ask about it, I had no idea if this was normal. It wasn't until I realized that I was quite far from my expected volume yeild and quite a bit of grain had actually made it into my kettle that I put the pieces together (metaphorically.) I tipped the tun to expose the joint where the elbow was supposed to be, only to find that it wasn't attached even a little bit. D'oh!
I snagged my braid-T-extension out of the freakin' scalding hot mash, rinsed the grains out of it, and managed to jam it back into the CPVC elbow, burning my right hand a bit in the process. The mash was only ~153, but still, that's damn hot.
I vorlauffed the entire volume I'd collected and collected fresh runnings. Clear! Woo-hoo! Oh, and for fun, I managed to knock the elbow off AGAIN when I was doing my second of 2 batch sparges. Cripes. I'm picking up a copper elbow and sweating that sumbitch on.
Anway, the rest of everything seemed to be pretty much as expected. One surprising finding -- I added my pumpkin (3 X 15 oz cans of Libby's) to the kettle before the boil, rather than into the mash, because I didn't want to add any crazy variables to my first mash. I also used a fine nylon mesh hop bag, since I was using pellets. Well, come to find out at the end of the boil, the hop bag was absolutely jammed full of pumpkin. I have no idea how it found its way in there, or why it stayed, but it definitely did.
Anyway, target OG was 1.057, and my actual OG was 1.054. Not too bad for a first semi-disastrous mash, I suppose. Of course, a significant amount of that is cheating (i.e. free gravity points from the sugar and molasses additions,) but I'll take it. :rockin:
All grain is awesome. I have so much to learn!
The mash was ... um ... an adventure. I made my MLT out of a 60 qt Igloo Max Cold Ice Cube cooler. For my "manifold," I used a SS braid attached to a 1/2" copper T, attached to a ~5" piece of 1/2" copper attached to a 90 degree CPVC elbow joining to my bulkhead fitting. Would probably have worked fantastically, except for the fact that I was counting on friction to keep the 5" copper extension connected to the elbow (which is why I used the CPVC.) As I discovered when I began the vorlauff prior to sparging, that wasn't quite sufficent. It took almost a gallon for the runnings to clear (or at least, I thought they were clear), and then they slowed to a teeny tiny trickle. Given that I'd never done this before and didn't have anybody watching over my shoulder to ask about it, I had no idea if this was normal. It wasn't until I realized that I was quite far from my expected volume yeild and quite a bit of grain had actually made it into my kettle that I put the pieces together (metaphorically.) I tipped the tun to expose the joint where the elbow was supposed to be, only to find that it wasn't attached even a little bit. D'oh!
I snagged my braid-T-extension out of the freakin' scalding hot mash, rinsed the grains out of it, and managed to jam it back into the CPVC elbow, burning my right hand a bit in the process. The mash was only ~153, but still, that's damn hot.
I vorlauffed the entire volume I'd collected and collected fresh runnings. Clear! Woo-hoo! Oh, and for fun, I managed to knock the elbow off AGAIN when I was doing my second of 2 batch sparges. Cripes. I'm picking up a copper elbow and sweating that sumbitch on. Anway, the rest of everything seemed to be pretty much as expected. One surprising finding -- I added my pumpkin (3 X 15 oz cans of Libby's) to the kettle before the boil, rather than into the mash, because I didn't want to add any crazy variables to my first mash. I also used a fine nylon mesh hop bag, since I was using pellets. Well, come to find out at the end of the boil, the hop bag was absolutely jammed full of pumpkin. I have no idea how it found its way in there, or why it stayed, but it definitely did.
Anyway, target OG was 1.057, and my actual OG was 1.054. Not too bad for a first semi-disastrous mash, I suppose. Of course, a significant amount of that is cheating (i.e. free gravity points from the sugar and molasses additions,) but I'll take it. :rockin:
All grain is awesome. I have so much to learn!
