Can’t believe it’s already my seventh go at this brew. All went reasonably well today with no pump lock-ups or other mistakes. I tried using rice hulls for the first time in order to make the mash a bit more free-flowing and extract more of the available sugars, but this increased the already significant mash volume right to the limit of the system and I think may have ultimately been counter-productive, missing my predicted OG by 9 points. We’ll see how that works out when primary is over.
Brew Day Notes
0635 Start dough-in.
0655 Start mash rest. Christ there’s a lot of grain in there! Might have to scale back in future batches.
0720 Start mash. This might get messy.
0725 Lots of stirring needed to keep this lot from overflowing. Checked in on the starter, and that looks dead. Last night’s high Krausen stuck to the sides, nothing on top. Will still use it though, adding the remaining dry pack of M44 for good measure.
0910 Mashing extra long but not getting past 1.066 (expected much higher if pre-boil should be 1.079) so let’s crack on.
0925 Mash-out at 75℃ nearly done, SG now 1.067. I’m not going to get my numbers today unless we have a good boil-off.
0935 Starting sparge
0937 Sparge done. Wow – that was not worth it. Pre-boil gravity now 1.064 against expected 1.079. Volume 25 litres against expected 24.69 – at least that bit’s good.
1005 Boil tracker started, 60 minute additions in.
1117 Boil finished, starting chill.
1127 Return temp already down to 33℃. Checked in on the starter again just now and there is some very slight foam at the edge of the glass, tiny amount of bubbles too. Think I’ll pitch is as-is and wait 24 hours before throwing in more yeast.
1150 Transferring. OG 1.070 so probably wont do a fermenter top-up. Let’s see how much we get into the FV.