Thermo-ale

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kdaust

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Could have called this F*ck-up Ale instead - But I'll see how it tastes first.

The missus was out for the night, and little one was asleep. So I started heating up 12 litres of water in my pot while I looked for my digital thermometer, and finished making a lasagne... Where's the damn thermometer!!!

40 minutes, and one call to the wife, later I resigned myself to not brewing .

F*ck it. I never get time to brew. And this cracked grain isn't getting any younger...

One google search later, I figure I can add 4.3L of approximately 18C tap water to 10L of boiling water to get about 72C. Plus 4-5kg of grain at 18C gives me around 65C mash temp... I hope.

Weighed my extra water - Grain went in - Quick mash with the Coopers spoon - timer on for 1 hour.

Notes in brew log:
4.2kg pale malt
0.5kg crystal malt
F*cking thermometer is gone - educated guestimate mash temp of 65C


Rest of brew went fine.

Drain, then 'sparge' in a bucket with a few extra litres to top up pot.

10g Chinook @60min
60g Cascade @10min
20g Chinook @ 10min
Approx 47 IBUs

[Will dry hop with Amarillo]

No chill in pot with glad wrapped lid.

Fingers crossed for a drinkable brew.
 
nice one mate, way to think outside the box!
 
Don't know I'll make it a habit; but I figure I'm a pretty laid back brewer, so it was a means to an end.

Would have been pretty accurate if I knew what my tap water temperature actually was. But alas, that would have required a thermometer.

Off to Jaycar for a new thermometer today.
 
Haha very crafty! Hope it worked

Did you do a hydrometer/refract reading on the wort runnings from the mash at all?
That would have at least given you some sort of indication of how much sugar you extracted from the grain.

I've been caught out once before (dropped glass thermometer), but its lucky my hot water urn for my mash/sparge liquid has a pretty accurate thermostat. Bung in the right numbers and I was probably withing a degree or two where I wanted to be...and the beer turned out fine, no loss of efficiency.
 
Did a quick one and got 1.062(ish) (post boil I was probably down to about 15L of liquid). But I'll check the hydro before I pitch tonight, and adjust to a slightly more voluminous/less alcoholic brew. Not too worried. Not going to bother calculating efficiency.
 
Final volume of 19 L diluted. At 1.044 in the hydrometer.

Pitched some s-04. Thermo ale away!!!
 
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