Bit of an odd one this. I was 500g short of Golden Promise so I substituted Clear Choice Ale and tweaked the other ingredients a little bit to realign my values, still ending up almost 1% ABV short of the previous version. When it came to brew day I also came in 9 points low against the predicted 1.080 but that’s to be expected because I sparged with around 2 litres instead of the recommended 0.75 in an effort to overcome the usual losses and because I don’t mind losing a little ABV on this one.
Brew Day Notes
0842 – Start dough-in. Strike water 29 litres 68℃, ignoring Brewfather recipe pre-amble since my water’s already up to temperature.
0920 – Mash rest complete. 35 litres mash volume against predicted 32.73 litres, looks like we’ll have to take it steady!
0930 – First stir complete, will repeat at approximately 10 minute intervals from now until 20 minutes from the end. Start mashing.
0945 – The pump’s making a knocking noise again, more pronounced than last time, despite being fine when running with cold water last night. Strip-down video from The Portly Gentleman shows the inner workings and it doesn’t look too complex, so maybe I’ll have a crack at that soon.
1025 – Last stir done, 15 minutes left to run.
1040 – Mash temperature is now at 75℃, time for a 10 minute mash-out.
1050 – Pre-sparge gravity 1.062 (1.046 @ 61℃) volume (with malt pipe) 33.5 litres. Raising malt pipe for sparge.
1055 – Recipe states 0.75 litres sparge and expects pre-boil gravity of 1.072 and pre-boil volume of 24.69, but I’m already below that with 1.062 and what looks like 22 litres – not that I want to let the mash dry out or get too cold. I’m therefore going to sparge with 2 litres, to hell with the SG.
1100 – Mash complete, looks like we’ll get 26.5 litres for the boil. Pre-boil gravity 1.063 (1.044 @ 65℃)
1150 – Boil 60 additions in, timer started.
1235 – About 20 minutes left to run. Pausing boil to measure levels and then cut in chiller & Trubinator. 25 litres before, 24 after. Resuming boil.
1242 – 15 minute additions in.
1300 – End of boil, heaters off in order to check levels before chilling. Looks like just over 23. litres, so around 1 litre of boil-off since cutting in chiller, 1.5 litres before that point? OG 1.071 (1.048 @ 72℃) against predicted 1.080. Not too bad, only a few points down.
1320 – Return temperature is 20℃, starting transfer to SS 25 litre bucket.
1445 – Clean-up finished, red Tilt and yeast starter deployed. Can’t really judge the FV level due to foam, but it appears to be somewhere between 20 and 22 litres. No worries.