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Date Created: 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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Comments
 | jds
07/28/2008 2:04 PM
Awesome. Let us know how it turns
out.
I'm a Colorado guy too, in western
Littleton. |
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