Post #4 made 10 years ago
by sb944
Thanks for the responses, I had PP's response before attempting, so I didn't re-hydrate, but didn't change anything else for now.
Here's how it went. I'd done a wet run the night before, so knew a little about my stove, heat loss and chilling.
I had little patience when I got home, so the stove and 13L water was on pretty quick. I'd started a couple of items on my checklist, then I checked the temp and it was 71C already, grain bag and grain not even in the kitchen yet! I had thought this was going to be a big part of the process to deal with, but 30 seconds later, I had the bag and grain in, mixed up nicely with my big spoon, really nothing to it. I measured 67C after the grain, covered, waited 5 mins, checked temp again, 67C still, mixed and covered. Put a sleeping bag around, bungee cord that to the pot, and 3 towels on top. After 90 mins that was still 66C, so I'm happy with that mash. After what PP said, I definitely think another 1-2L could have been in the mash, and might have helped... next time. But other than that, I can't imagine the mash going any smoother. The smell was strong, but not as strong as I'd imagined (thinking about feeding horses with my dad 20 years ago, big buckets of mollasses). After draining for 3 mins, I put the bag in pot 3, took the bag to pot 2. I noticed a bit of wort in pot 3 after the transfer, then put that in pot 1. I was looking at my wort a few minutes later, and noticed about 3 grains floating in it. I'm not sure if that was from pot 3 in the transfer, or if some grain got through the bag. I'm now really worried my grain bag is not up to this process, as I don't have swiss voille, just a large medium mesh grain bag from craftbrewer. I'm guessing there is not only a grain or two in there, but also smaller fragments throughout my brew?
Pot 2 had boiled 8L of water, and cooled down to 83C (cooled quicker than I thought) With the grain in it dropped to 73C, which is about 2C lower than I thought I'd get, but I'm sure that's OK. I put pot 1 back on to boil, while I stirred the sparge. 15 minutes later I put the bag in a colander in pot 3, and put pot 2 onto boil. I used some decent gloves to massage the last out of the grain bag. Pot 1 took about 20 minutes to get a proper boil, and pot 2 was about 5 minutes behind, so all of pot 2 went in pot 1, very close to a full 19L pot at that point, no cover needed, still boiled away, no spills either. A few minutes later I put in the pot 3 drained wort, then threw out the grain. No liquid added after 10 minutes into the 90 minute boil.
For some reason when I seperated the hops, I decided to use the 6g left over, by splitting them in the 3 cups. I don't know why, because I was already worried about strong hops with my average chilling techniqes. I also followed the recipe, 60, 20, 5. Hops smelt very strong, and I swear there is still hops smell in my kitchen, and on me the next day! They were rolling around (in a bag) the whole time, so I assume I got a decent rolling boil. After the boil, I took a sample. I let the sample cool, then cooled it more. It measured exactly 1.058 at 26C, which I think means closer to 1.060.
I thought I had chilling down, but work to do here. I sanitised the lid, put it on, then let it sit for 5 mins, then put the pot in the cool sink water. I replaced that water 3 times, each time it got quite warm, then 20 mins in, I figured it was time for ice. I had plenty of bottles of frozen water, but they didn't easily get into the water, so needed my constant attention. Next time, I need ice that can easily be dumped in the water all at once. I decided I needed help, so started taking the lid off and temporarily swirling the pot every 5 mins with a santised spoon, but still not sure this is OK. I didn't leave the sink for more than 30 seconds, yet still spent about 80 minutes cooling it down to 23C, so this process drained me a lot. I had put sanitiser in the fermenter earlier at least, so that was ready for me. I put a sanitised strainer on the fermenter, and poured the wort in OK. I saw some trub going in, so stopped, unsure how much I'd held back, but decided to stop there. It looked a little frothy, so I took a sample, but the froth was really weak, so whisked it after, and pitched. The STC1000 said 22C when I got it in the fridge, 18C by 30 minutes, so happy with how that went.
The end was a little sour though. Even with chilling taking more effort than I'd like, I liked that I had 1.058 @ 26C, and hadn't lost any liquid to any silly mistakes. So some things came as a surprise at the end. Firstly, I only got 11L in the fermenter, not 12.3L. I poured the remaining trub into a 1.3L container, and it overflowed and then some, so I probably had around 2L of trub that I threw out, need to work on getting less leftover trub. Also, my OG tested at 1.052? I'd measured around 1.060 post boil, how did it get to 1.052? One idea is faulty reading, as I'd only taken the first draw out of the fermenter as the sample, and nothing else had changed between the post boil and fermenter, except leaving the trub. And I'd swirled the pot quite a bit during chill, so I can't imagine too much got lost to the trub, don't know?
The taste? I'm still unsure on this part. The hops taste were massive in both of my samples, overpowering at first. Yet today, I'm feeling a bit different about it. I'm wondering if that's just because I'm so used to mega-swill, and more recently kit and kilo, that this strong hop is a bit in your face? One thing I know, is nothing about this tastes like the kits I've done, and tastes very "fresh". The hops are bigger, the taste behind the hops a whole lot smoother. I'm really looking forward to how the taste changes.
Safe to say, I'm hooked, as I figure I would be.
That 11L in the fermenter sure looks lonely though. I bought enough grain/hops/etc for 2 of this recipe, so I think I might do it all again tonight, and put the new wort in the same fermenter. What do you think?