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07/23/2008
2nd Batch – “Belgium Holiday” Christmas Ale
This is my
first Mini-Mash; I am using RichBrewer’s Mini-Mash
system that he was kind enough to help me out with.
First let me say that mash temps confuse the hell out
of me, and I could not seem to set it up the way I
wanted in BTP. So in the end I just did the same thing
that Rich did.
First things first: Last night my 4 year old daughter
and I milled all the grain with my Corona Mill. I got
it set for what I thought was a good crush, and then
ran it through twice. 2.5 kg of grain took me about 30
to finish, but most of that time was due to the “help”
of my little brew buddy.
Today: The wife and child are gone for now, so I
thought I would get started. Gathered all my stuff and
set off to make sure that had my BTP session ready to
go. Also downloaded the brew timer from Yuri (cold not
use it, missing file or something) so I down loaded a
different timer that will track the mash, boil, hops
additions, and Irish moss.
So I heated up 1.75 gal of water for the strike, the
remembered that I was using tap water and not the
bottled water, so scrapped that and started over again.
Pre heated the cooler mash tun with hot tap water,
while the strike water was heating (again). Over shot
the 175F I wanted, but no big deal. Dumped the strike
water into the cooler and let it cool to 170F, hit it
with the grain, and it settled out at about 155/156
hard to tell with a dial. I then started my timer, and
typed this up. More to follow.
With about 15 min left in the mash, I heated ½ gal of
water to boil, and then let it cool to about 205F for a
infusion to raise the temp for a mash out. At the same
time I heated 2 gal of water to 170 for the sparge.
After about 10 min the mash out only made it up to 160,
real low, I collected my first running, after
recalculating. I collected almost 2 gallons of the
2.25 gallons in the tun. I then added 1.5 gal of
sparge water at 185F stirred well and collected. The
sparge runnings were at 160, damn low again.
Well after it was all said and done my wort pre boil,
pre DME was at 1.042, does this seem right? The
Efficiency calculator. said I hit 133%. Any way we are
off for the boil.
Boil went well, no boil over and I hit my time hacks as
needed. First hops in at 60, 2nd hops in at 30, late
addition DME in at 20, Irish moss in at 15, molasses in
at 5, and all spices except for vanilla beans in at
flame out. I did add ¼ tsp of vanilla extract in at
flame out as well.
It took about 35 min to get the wort cooled in an ice
bath to about 90F. I lost a lot to evaporation this
time. My first batch, I kept the kettle covered to
prevent this, but later found that this is not a good
idea. While I was waiting for the cold break, I
re-hydrated my Safale 05 yeast. I topped off to 5
gallons, took a gravity sample. 1.050 – hmmm should
have been 1.060. Re mixed the wort and pulled a new
sample 1.058 much better.
So she is down in the basement in an water bath to help
keep the temps down, with a blow-off hose rigged from
the body of a 3 piece airlock, my bottling hose, and a
Tupperware filled with sanitized water.
Fermentation clock started at 3:15 pm.
I had a lot more trouble this time around (missed
temps) but also had a lot more fun. Worst case
scenario . . . I MADE BEER!...
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