Hard to believe this is my first brew day in over four months! I was afraid of making some big mistake or forgetting something, but the whole day ran like clockwork and I hit most of my numbers apart from boil-off rate, but that’s a recurring issue and likely fixed with further tweaks to the equipment profile.
New 22h Starter Sweet Spot?
I built my starter from a freshly delivered bottle of WLP-002 slurry only yesterday afternoon, maybe between four and five, and was afraid that wouldn’t give it enough time to get going. I was also concerned about the quality of the yeast when I pitched it into the cooled starter wort, because I’ve never seen it with so many small lumps, like bits of chopped up macaroni. But I pressed on anyway, and resolved to throw it out and pitch a fresh sachet directly if the starter didn’t work.
But it seemed to be OK when I fired up the kettle this morning, and had begun to grow a little foam, not enough to cover the top, but definite signs of life. Those bits of macaroni were still whizzing round though. Odd.
By the time I’d cooled the finished wort to pitching temperature there was maybe a quarter of an inch of foam on top of the starter, so in it went.
She’s Off!
The first stages of clean-up were complete and I left 15 litres of brewery wash soaking in the kettle at 12:00, stepping out for around two hours to run some errands. When I resumed cleaning I heard distinct and regular popping from the FV, which I’d filled at 18.0℃ and had forgotten to switch on the brew fridge when I left earlier.
So we’re looking at definite start of fermentation just two hours after pitching, and that’s at 18.0 ℃ instead of intended 19.4℃. Very positive indeed!
Brew Day Notes
0730 Mash rest done, starting mash.
0845 Going for mash-out at 77℃. Wonderfully clear wort! SG 1.057 (1.036 @ 65.2℃) and 25.5 litres with malt pipe in, 17.5 litres with pipe out.
0903 Start sparge
0906 Sparge done, letting it drip for a moment with heaters to 100%. Volume 28.5 litres, SG 1.041 (1.022 @ 62.3℃) against expected 28.86 / 1.040 – looks like I’m more or less bang on my numbers with mash efficiency of 83% versus expected 82%.
0950 Up to temperature, boil tracker on and 60 minute additions in.
1035 15 minute boil additions in, level 25.5 approx before chiller in, 25.25 litres with it out.
1050 End of boil, starting chill.
11:20 Transferring, SG 1.046 (1.044 @ 27.1℃) approx 21.5 litres in the FV plus 1.1 litres starter.
14:30 Clean-up finished (left kettle to soak for maybe 2 hours while running errands) and there’s regular popping from the blow-off bottle. Nice!