I need to vent. I brewed a raspberry wheat yesterday. I hit my mash temp exactly, had a great sparge, and nothing stuck. When I started to boil, the wind picked up and stayed strong the entire boil. It actually blew out my flame and I didn't realize it at one point. I ended up running out of gas and tried to finish the full boil on my stove. I had 15 minutes left in the boils so I dropped my chiller in...it wouldn't come back up to a boil. I ended up cutting the last ten minutes off of the boil and chilled. I had an awesome cold break, but it all stirred back in when I tried to whirlpool. On the plus side I pitched a 1.5 L starter from my new stir plate and fermentation took off in four hours. I just hope that cutting the boil early and not having the chiller boil in the wort didn't ruin my beer.
Worst brew day yet
- Thread starter MacGruber
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Richardhead
Active Member
We all have days like that-when is happens to me I just sit in my easy chair grab my Joy of Home Brewing book and Relax and have a Home Brew.
Mac you should be ok, it's a raspberry wheat beer. I'm sure it will be better than most of the commercial wheat/fruit beer. As for the wind issue, in a pinch I have used aluminum foil and duct tape to wrap my burn base when the weather makes it difficult to keep my burner lit.
SwampassJ
Well-Known Member
Other than boil off and slight change in hop utilization you're probably ok. Even if you didn't boil the chiller if it went in at near boiling I would think it sanitized just fine
microbusbrewery
Senior Member
SwampassJ said:
+1, you should be fine
Thanks for the reassurance. The fermentation took off like a rocket. I have it in a swamp cooler. Ambient temp is 68 but I keep changing ice packs in the cooler. It's going strong and has a wonderful banana aroma right now coming out of the sanitized container the blow off tube is running into.
I'm looking forward to this one:
5 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb Pils
5 lbs Wheat
0.5 lbs carapils/dextrin
Mashed at 154 for 60 min.
WLP320 in a 1.5 L starter
I added two tablespoons of raspberry extract last 15 min of boil. I'll be adding more at kegging.
5 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb Pils
5 lbs Wheat
0.5 lbs carapils/dextrin
Mashed at 154 for 60 min.
WLP320 in a 1.5 L starter
I added two tablespoons of raspberry extract last 15 min of boil. I'll be adding more at kegging.
Update: kegged it today and it tasted great. It had this slight toasty flavor that I haven't had in a Hefeweizen before but I really like. I thought it tasted really unique. It's gotta be the Maris Otter. The banana/clove was subtle and I added 4.5 oz of Brewers Best Raspberry extract. I'll update again after a few days on the gas.
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