Last brew was a bit of a mare, first decoction, fell asleep ! During the boil, now krausening all over the fridge, you name it's seems to have gone wrong. But it seems to have come out with ridiculous efficiency ?
Was the 2 nd mash of the day, and I thought I,d save time/$ gas by using the hot water out of my immersion chiller to mash in with. Started mash in at 82 c water coming out of chiller, normally strike is 74 for my system, but chiller outlet was cooling rapidly, ended up with mash temp at 50c. Big draw back with strike water coming out of chiller is that there's a bit going on at once. So left the 2nd mash for a while whilst I got the 1 st in the fermenter and sorted.
So thought here's a chance to try some decoctions, and I got lucky. Few jugs of mash back into small pan, to the boil for few minutes then back into mash, which by sheer luck settles at 66c, sorted.
Mash out, into kettle, get too boil, add hops, and all hell breaks loose with the kids upstairs. So leave wort boiling to help swmbo with kids, youngest needs lunchtime nap, won,t settle to I lie down for few minutes. Get woken by the 60 min timer on my watch, panic. So get down, throw pile of flameout hops in, whirlpool for short while, then. Into cube and more cube hops. At this stage realize my new adj regulator allows a hard boil, lots more evaporation than i'm used to, and what should have filled the cube is only 20 liters, not 22+ with some left in the kettle.
So risk it, and no chill with the cube near 3/4 full. Next day realize too much chance of oxidation so put into spare (smaller) cube to ferment in. Smaller cube is only 15l (a hot 20l cube swollen as it fills has more in it that it first looks!), so massive overflow, and a pile wasted. Out of time, so bung in a starter, and glad rap the top, and thrown in ferm fridge. Put a bit of the left overs into the hydro sample jar, leave it to measure next day. Wtf, it's 1080!!!
So, I know I lost more to Evaporation than expected, but 1080? Is this what decoction does?
Grain bill is odd, I was emptying the store cupboard!
3 kg pale ale malt
.8 kg carapils
.5 kg dime - it was spare and I thought I was low on grain.
.4 kg caramalt
.4 pilsner
.25 crystal 15
.25 wheat
Brewmaster puts this at 1055, 25 liters, which I would expect to be 55*25/20 = 1068.
Anyway, there,s krausening all over the inside of the fridge now, but it smells great, and seeing as the catalogue of stuff ups will make it unrepeatable it's probably going to taste great, at least I hope so.
Btw hops were also aimed at emptying the cupboard...
EKG at 60 min
North brewer motueka pacific hallertau Nelson sauvin at flame out and cube, total 60 ibu was planned god knows what I got....
Wyeast 1272 for what it's worth.....
Plenty of lessons learnt for me!
Was the 2 nd mash of the day, and I thought I,d save time/$ gas by using the hot water out of my immersion chiller to mash in with. Started mash in at 82 c water coming out of chiller, normally strike is 74 for my system, but chiller outlet was cooling rapidly, ended up with mash temp at 50c. Big draw back with strike water coming out of chiller is that there's a bit going on at once. So left the 2nd mash for a while whilst I got the 1 st in the fermenter and sorted.
So thought here's a chance to try some decoctions, and I got lucky. Few jugs of mash back into small pan, to the boil for few minutes then back into mash, which by sheer luck settles at 66c, sorted.
Mash out, into kettle, get too boil, add hops, and all hell breaks loose with the kids upstairs. So leave wort boiling to help swmbo with kids, youngest needs lunchtime nap, won,t settle to I lie down for few minutes. Get woken by the 60 min timer on my watch, panic. So get down, throw pile of flameout hops in, whirlpool for short while, then. Into cube and more cube hops. At this stage realize my new adj regulator allows a hard boil, lots more evaporation than i'm used to, and what should have filled the cube is only 20 liters, not 22+ with some left in the kettle.
So risk it, and no chill with the cube near 3/4 full. Next day realize too much chance of oxidation so put into spare (smaller) cube to ferment in. Smaller cube is only 15l (a hot 20l cube swollen as it fills has more in it that it first looks!), so massive overflow, and a pile wasted. Out of time, so bung in a starter, and glad rap the top, and thrown in ferm fridge. Put a bit of the left overs into the hydro sample jar, leave it to measure next day. Wtf, it's 1080!!!
So, I know I lost more to Evaporation than expected, but 1080? Is this what decoction does?
Grain bill is odd, I was emptying the store cupboard!
3 kg pale ale malt
.8 kg carapils
.5 kg dime - it was spare and I thought I was low on grain.
.4 kg caramalt
.4 pilsner
.25 crystal 15
.25 wheat
Brewmaster puts this at 1055, 25 liters, which I would expect to be 55*25/20 = 1068.
Anyway, there,s krausening all over the inside of the fridge now, but it smells great, and seeing as the catalogue of stuff ups will make it unrepeatable it's probably going to taste great, at least I hope so.
Btw hops were also aimed at emptying the cupboard...
EKG at 60 min
North brewer motueka pacific hallertau Nelson sauvin at flame out and cube, total 60 ibu was planned god knows what I got....
Wyeast 1272 for what it's worth.....
Plenty of lessons learnt for me!
