First brew day in what feels like ages, and nothing went wrong – result! All the numbers lined up pretty well and primary fermentation started 4 or 5 hours after pitching. I’d not used WLP-002 before and was pleasantly surprised with it’s low lag time and well-mannered performance, especially since we ended up with only 3 inches or so of headroom.
Brew Day Notes
0740 Mash rest done, first stir. Start mashing. Seems to be quite light and flowing well.
0900 Pre-sparge SG 1.055 (1.037 @ 64.3℃) and 24 litres with malt pipe in, but recipe shows mash volume of 25 litres. Wonderfully clear wort.
0915 Pre-boil volume 29 litres, SG 1.043 (1.024 @ 66.4℃) against expected 28.86 / 1.040. Sparge only took about 2 minutes. Good numbers!
1030 About to cut in chiller coil, looks like 27.2 litres in there against expected 26.46.
1045 Boil over, starting chill to 19℃ ahead of transfer.
1105 Tank is at 45℃ and return temperature 29.9℃ with pumps at 15%. SG 1.045 (1.038 @ 41.8℃) against expected 1.044 – good.
1145 Transfer finished, 22 litres in FV. Pitching 1.3 litre yeast starter. Only about 3 inches headspace in the SS Brewtech 25 litre bucket – this could be messy. Will fit blow-off tube instead of airlock.
1315 Clean-up finished, includes 30 minutes for lunch. Blue Tilt deployed.