BitterSweetBrews
Tim Trabold
I just set up my brewery with a bunch of valves so I won't have to move hoses around during a brew day. I used it for the first time yesterday to brew an 8 gallon batch of ESB. For the most part everything went real well. It did end up to be pretty complicated and while learning what to flip where, I did have one snafu.
When I was mashing out I was supposed to add about 3 gallons of 200 degree water to raise the mash temp to 165 for 10 minutes.
So I would do it right I stopped for a couple minutes to make sure I set my valves to rinse my RIMS while doing this. While I was figuring it out in my brain and looking at it, I didn't realize it, but I was draining water from straight the HLT into the mash tun. I had turned off the pump, but I didn't shut the HLT valve, so gravity was doing its thing. I ended up adding about 5 gallons of 200 degree water at about 60 minutes into the mash and raised the temp of my mash to about 190.
When I realized this I stopped the flow. I decided to cool it down as fast as I could. I changed the valves around and sent the mash wort through my counter-flow-chiller and back into the tun. It lowered it to about 155. I then raised it up to 165 with the RIMS and did a batch sparge with the water already added and a small fly sparge with the rest. After fully draining it, I ended up with 12.5 gallons in the boil, when I only needed 11.5.
I boiled it down to 11.5 gallons then started my 1 hour timer for hop additions. From there on everything went well and I ended up with the right volume in the fermenters and was within 1 point of expected gravity.
So, my question is what do you think the higher mash temp toward the end did? Is it going to dramatically affect my flavor profile? If so, in what way? It tastes OK now, but I am not sure how it should taste, since this is the first time I have brewed an ESB.
When I was mashing out I was supposed to add about 3 gallons of 200 degree water to raise the mash temp to 165 for 10 minutes.
So I would do it right I stopped for a couple minutes to make sure I set my valves to rinse my RIMS while doing this. While I was figuring it out in my brain and looking at it, I didn't realize it, but I was draining water from straight the HLT into the mash tun. I had turned off the pump, but I didn't shut the HLT valve, so gravity was doing its thing. I ended up adding about 5 gallons of 200 degree water at about 60 minutes into the mash and raised the temp of my mash to about 190.
When I realized this I stopped the flow. I decided to cool it down as fast as I could. I changed the valves around and sent the mash wort through my counter-flow-chiller and back into the tun. It lowered it to about 155. I then raised it up to 165 with the RIMS and did a batch sparge with the water already added and a small fly sparge with the rest. After fully draining it, I ended up with 12.5 gallons in the boil, when I only needed 11.5.
I boiled it down to 11.5 gallons then started my 1 hour timer for hop additions. From there on everything went well and I ended up with the right volume in the fermenters and was within 1 point of expected gravity.
So, my question is what do you think the higher mash temp toward the end did? Is it going to dramatically affect my flavor profile? If so, in what way? It tastes OK now, but I am not sure how it should taste, since this is the first time I have brewed an ESB.
