Almost posted yesterday, but I was just too into it all. I smoked yesterday AND brewed for the first time.
Unsure if there are any smokers here, but my MIL had a couple of whole tri-tip steaks preseasoned and prepackaged just needing to be grilled. Well, after my BIL didn't do it the day before, I asked her if she might like it smoked? She said cool, so I started yesterday off with a trip to Home Depot to pick up a $20 back of hickory.
Had the meat on smoke by about 9 am.
Not gonna lie, it was a lazy day. I work today, so I wasn't exactly johnny go get 'em when it came to cleaning up after my last brewing. However, sometime around 11ish, I finally got the mashtun and boil kettle reasonably cleaned in order to brew my third and last Cal common 'steam' beer.
I have ordered one all grain recipe online, and picked up another two from my LHBS.
My previous iteration on this one, I under-targetted my mash ph, somehow. I had used RODI water and accumash for it. Checking the beer today at lower than room temperature, it came in at 4.9 ph. A bit low. I am hoping that temperature was to blame for this reading. Please keep in mind, also, that this wasn't what I brewed yesterday, but a two week old batch that I transferred recently to keg.
For yesterday's brew, I did not have accumash. I had some gypsum. I didn't know the water reading for RO/DI water (if anyone could provide that, I would be very much obliged) so I followed the instructions on the gypsum bottle which was 1-2 teaspoons per 5 gallons of water, I believe. As I had 8.5 gallons of water to mash in with, I added the gypsum to this (which, I believe, was a huge mistake). I ended up coming out with a reading of near 7.9 to 8.0 on my hot liquor prior to mashing in. I will likely not have a reading of the final ph of my mash until it's finished attenuating, which, by then, will be too late.
But, on the tail of that, I have my big mouth carboy now in a conrtrolled 68 degree environment for the Wyeast 2112 California yeast to do its business. Wish me luck.