The good and the bad of the day

[ISLAGI]

After much errand running with SWMBO on my vacation day, I finally got my chance to brew. I made Orfy's Boddington clone, so hopefully it will be yummo (sorry for the Rachel Ray there)

Got my bag o' grains out from the LHBS and just for fun, thought I would run them through my shiny new BC mill. I got the grains on the same visit as the mill, but before I decided to drop the bones for the mill.

What a huge freaking difference! Looking at the grains before they went into the BC, it looked the the husks were just cracked, with barely any flour visible. Afterwards, I had shredded husks and a ton of flour. I could hardly believe the difference, so I was expecting a huge increase in eff. from my previous 2 AG batches.

WRONG! I got my strike water ready, and dumped it into my MLT to warm everything up before adding the grain. Guess I need to learn to read a thermometer, cuz after adding approx. 12# grains to 18 qts. of water, I ended up mashing at 158f, instead of the planned for 154.

After mashing for 45 minutes, I batch sparge out, and somehow end up with an extra 2/3 of a gallon in the boil kettle. So I ended up with 7 gals. of 1.033 into the kettle and 5.5 gals of 1.045 into the fermenter (after adding an extra 6 ozs. of DME as a late addition).

To top it all off, I had to toss a fermenter today because the lid started to mold and mildew while it was closed up with a gallon of StarSan in the bottom. Then I dropped the bowl I had used to rehydrate my Notty in, and ended up with a small shard of glass in my foot.

Good thing I love this hobby!

PS. I am going to brew a Fat Tire clone tomorrow, and an extract PA on Sunday. Wish me luck!

 

[android]

bummer man, i bet that beer will still come out nice... and with a good story to back it up.

 

[homebrewer_99]

Where are you? Oh, O-HI-O...good thing too...with your luck I'd be worried about getting run over by your own Fat Tire...

Good luck brewing the next batch.

 

[ISLAGI]

Wish I had seen your message earlier....

I think I did get run over by my own fat tire today. I actually dropped 10 pts of efficiency, from 57 to 47.

Can someone check my process and give me some idea of what to look for, as far as process improvement.

Grain Bill :
10 lbs. Munich
2 lbs. 2-row
1 lb. Biscuit
1 lb Crystal 60
1 lb Pilsener Light DME (to make up for crappy eff, late addition)

Crushed grains myself on my new BC, set to .035. Heated up 6 qts of distilled to 14 qts of tap water to 180, added to MLT and stirred down to ~165 before doughing in. Mashed at 154 for 60 mins. losing 2 deg. over the hour. No ph strips, so no exact readings. Normal tap ph is 9.5.

Batch sparged with total of 14.5 qts of water, 9 qts @ 170, and remaining at 155 with 10 minute rest for each sparge. Hit 7 gallon pre-boil volume dead on.

Boiled 60 minutes to a final volume of 5.25 gallons @ 1.052.\

HELP!

 

[Gremlyn]

As I said on he cat, your sparge temp is too low. The sparge strike water should be 180-190F to hit 170 in the grain bed. Just wanted to posted for anyone that comes across this post in the future looking for answers

 

[ISLAGI]

Thanks for that Gremlyn!

Now, I'll have to get more grains to try another batch this week!

 

[passedpawn]

Remove all glass from your equipment. Do it now, or do it later, but you will end up doing it.

 

[ISLAGI]

Have my first carboy, still in use...The glass was a bowl I "borrowed" from a set of SWMBO's, because I couldn't find the Pyrex measuring cup...I'll pay for that later...

I'll probably keep using it (in a milk crate) just because I'm too cheap to throw anything away

 

[bigjoe]

Have you calibrated your thermometer? By the calculations in stragebrew you should have had 1.066 before the DME on the fat tire.

How are you taking your temp? If your thermometer is good I'd make sure you have your mash mixed thoroughly.