Well, this is a tale of a brew day that I will not soon forget. At least till the muscle soreness wears of at least. The plan was my doppelganger bock recipe that was the best beer that I brewed last year with my cooler system. A few tweaks to adapt it to my new RIMS rig. Sounds simple enough right? First I'll crush my 35+ pounds of grain. Drill motor dies about 8 pounds into the crush so I put the hand crank on begin hurting myself. After a couple of cranks I check my crush and it looks too coarse. I figured that was expected so due to me going way slower than the drill so I adjust my gap. Looked good after that so I went for it and crushed the rest. About 5 minutes after doughing it I start getting a stuck mash and my pump going to the RIMS is loosing suction. The only way to keep this thing from instantly turning into a huge dough ball is constant stiring. So once I get to rest temp I have to shut the RIMS off and just let it set While I pull the first decoction. Then I realize that my mash paddle is about a foot too short to comfortably stir on my lower tier kettle. This is a hochkurtz mash so after about 5 mins I was seriously considering grabbing one of my new canoe paddles but I soldiered on. When I finally got to my sac rest it started to loosen up so I tried the RIMS agian and within 5 mins was scorching the crap out of it so off again. By now I was fighting the urge to break stuff BIGTIME! Lautering this blob off took about two hours. When it was all said and done I had about twelve hours into it and overshot my OG by 13 points. Now I off this afternoon to go out and clean the gear and I can barely grip anythig. Every brew from hear on this year is gonna be a cake walk.
