No major dramas on brew day despite a very full malt pipe and initially slow moving mash. This could have been due to the core temperature being slow to rise, something I’ve only really had an insight into since getting the new temperature probe. Maybe upping the rice hulls from 200g to 300g could help too, but to be honest I’m right on the limit here in terms of volume, so maybe 8% is all we can hope for on an end yield of greater than 15 litres.
Brew Day Notes
Yeti 12
Brew Day Notes
0545 Start dough-in
0605 Start mash rest
0625 About to fit manifold, looks like 36 litres mash volume. Right on the limit today!
0630 Start mashing
0640 Mash is very very thick, moving slowly. Temperature indicated at 54℃ in the middle, 68℃ target so upping it a bit.
0700 Core stabilised at 67℃ with some manual control at 75% (mash PID wasn’t strong enough)
0715 Ramping back to 65% keeping mash at 66℃, and the flow is getting a bit easier, allowing me to increase the rate. Roughly 25 left on the clock, may go a bit longer.
0810 Stopped mash ahead of sparging, SG 1.066 (1.044 @ 70℃) and 34 litres with malt pipe in.
0820 Sparge finished, looks like 23 litres boil volume against expected 22.6. Hard to sparge with just over 1 litre, pump started knocking and it was probably due to sucking air from HTL at end. Maybe just use a jug of hot water next time around. SG 1.064 (1.047 @ 62.6℃) against predicted 1.072 – that’s very poor but we’ll likely recover some during boil.
0855 Starting boil tracker, 60 minute additions in.
0950 Boil tracker paused while I put in chiller coil and trubinator. Levels before 21 litres (predicted 20.21) SG 1.076 (1.048 @ 79.1℃) against predicted 1.080 so we’re on for 7.9% ABV. Won’t bother with any more boil-off or top-up.
1005 Boil finished, chilling.
1030 Return temperature at 21℃ / 15% flow, starting transfer.
1230 Clean-up finished (with 45 minute interval for a run into town) and yeast starter pitched, blue Tilt Pro deployed.