After purchasing a kit from Getbrewed with the PECO boiler / mash tun, realising on receipt it came without a controller for the boiler - I purchased one from PECO themselves. I had looked at making one (plenty of online guides), but for the sake of £40 I took the hit. I only wanted to lower the 2.4kw element boil power, as the I believed I could stabilise the Mash temp.
So
13.00ish - trip to Asda. I live in the south east UK, and the water here is always loaded with chlorine and fills a kettle with limescale after 1 boil (a little exagorated, but you get the picture) - So the brew got treated to 30L of 'Spring Water', for the sake of £6, it made sense to me! For those who care - it was 'Eden Falls' opposed to Asda own brand. The difference being £1.60! - It made me feel a little glow inside as it sounded better
In the beginning there was a confiscated dining table... 'Mrs wasnt happy as it was being used to store the freshly dried washing'
Next step was insulating the Boiler/Mash Tun - This was achieved with a radiator backing, basically a sheet of tin foil and bubble wrap. I guessed if it could take radiator heat, it can take a boiler at 100oC. So some black nasty later, a double insulated boiler
Added 27.5Ltrs of the spring of life water lol
The instructions on the boiler stated it would take sometime to reach a boil, a bit less to reach mash temp. With the insulation (and I hadnt tested it without) - it crept up at 2oC ish per minute, it had reached 69oC within 20mins
In went the bag of grain and with a steady mix, it looked something like this
On went the lid, I gave it a quick stir at 20 minute intervals thru the hours mash, after the hour was up - I had read some where about a 'mash out' - so took the temp from 64oC to 70oC which took about 10mins (The only time I had to re-power the boiler as the temp had stayed 64oC through the Mash). Turned off the power and lifted the bag, drained the grain and the power went back on for the boil
Once I had hit a rolling boil, I added the 1st packet of hops (60mins), as per the destuctions.
Added the cooling element at 15mins to end, then the 10 min hops 50 mins into the boil with the Irish moss tablet- its worth noting the rolling boil was on 4 out of 10 on the controller.
Went for a beer and to calm the mrs who was still moaning about her washing, at this point things went wrong! On returning I spotted what I believe the 1st hop packet had split and the contents had liberated themselves into the boil. By this time it was to late to do anything and I wasnt throwing in the towel at such a late stage
At 1 hour, the 0 min hops went in, and I started the chill. The temp dropped from 100oC to 25oC in about 45mins. I can only assume the moss and rapid cooling had done it stuff, as the mix looked thinner than the boil. You could see the particles had pulled together into 'clumps'
I drained into my fermentation bucket and ended up with 17.5ltrs from 27.5, the drained fluid had left the clumped particles on the 'strainer' in the boiler.
The gravity was tested and got a reading @25oC of 1.056/8. In went the yeast to the fermentation bin...
