Happy Holidays to all. Well having some time off from work and a little extra money in my pocket, I figured it was time to brew. So I did some shopping around at my local home brew stores, from my computer, to see who had the best deal. Since I wanted an extra bottle of CO2, Keg Cowboy was the choice. Check them out for your home brewing and kegging needs.
So back to the mini-mash, with 41/2lbs of grain, I decided to use my mash tun for the conversion. The grain bags that I had probably would hold a pound of grain at best. Grain bags, more like hops bags, I don't really know where they came from. It has been at least 3 years since I have done a partial mash. I began the boil with 2-1/2 gal of water at 165*F for my strike water. I put that in the cooler let it set for 15 min or so and rechecked the temp. With my garage temp at around 50*F, it was down to 155*F. That is close enough, recipe says 150*.I'll let that mash for about an hour or so. At this time, I began to boil another 2-1/2 gal of water to around 170* for my next sparge. After an hour, it was time to catch my first run off of wort. This is when I started having problems with my "false bottom". I had only a trickle coming out, oh no a "stuck sparge". After tapping on the valve and stirring the grains back up it began to run out a bit better. When I got all the wort out, I added my sparge water and let it set for 30 mins or so at 170*. My sparge run off was still very slow, and I knew that after this brew I was going to have to modify my mash tun.
Ok , now the boil, I have around 5 gals of wort collected. I added about another 1/2 gal of water and heated the wort to around 200*F. At this time, I added 6lbs of liquid malt extract. If you are using liquid extract, set it in hot water for 30 minutes or so before use. It will make it alot easier to get it out of the bag or can. I also added my bittering hops and resumed the boil. I let that boil for around 40 minutes, then added my flavoring hops and Irish Moss. I let that boil for another 15 minutes. One note, my last hop addition was whole hops and it caused problems with my rack while transferring wort to the fermenter. My suggestion is to use that type of hops in a bag or cheese cloth. You learn as you go, That was the first time I had ever used non-pelletized hops.
After cooling the wort, I transferred to my primary fermenter and check my gravity. It was right on, some how, with about 1/2 gal too much wort. I had hydrated my yeast in some warm water, now its pitch time. I pitched the yeast and gave an aggressive stir, said a prayer, and put the cap on the fermenter.
I was just worried, because of the excessive exposure of my wort to the air. With the almost stuck sparge, the plugging of my rack while transferring wort to fermenter, the wort was exposed way to long. Hopefully, it will be ok. One promising thing is that after 9 hours, the air lock was bubbling. I was shocked especially since this was a dry yeast. Fermentation after 9 hours is a good sign, but the finished product will be the evidence of a good brew or not. I'll keep ya posted. Cheers
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