7 lbs British Pale Malt.
0.5 lbs Munich.
1.0 lbs Crystal 40L
0.5 lbs Honey Malt
0.25 lbs Crystal 120L
3.0oz Pale Chocolate 200L
UK Kent Goldings 0.75oz 5.7%AA
WLP002 x1 Date: 3-19-15 Lot: 1012737 with a 2 cup starter.
Whirlfloc
Servomyces
50% RC water
50% Distilled
These brewing salts:
We are shooting for a mash of 158F.
2:37pm - We've had a kind of soft start today. I'm taking my time getting going. I've boiled some ball valves and the O2 stone. Cleaned some stuff. That's about it. Watching football all the while. When this next game is over I will really get after it.
4:05pm - All ready a screw up. I'm cleaning more gear. I think I'm getting an infection from the ball valves which is then making its way into the other equipment. So I'm cleaning a lot of stuff. And I'm trying to multitask. I plan to use one of the glass fermenters because I think the plastic ones maybe infected. So I transferred a bunch of PWB water from the basin to a glass fermenter via a siphon. It was slow so I went inside to do something else and forgot about it. So there is now a few gallons of water on the floor in the garage. Whoops! Anyhow, football game over. Seahawks beat Packers in overtime to go the Super Bowl. So I guess we will get started now.
I've measured out the brew salts, malt, hops, and ground up the grain. Now I will get the strike water heated up while I get the mash tun together.
4:57 - All mashed in. Was going for 158F. Nailed it! I had some problems getting the mash tun to not leak. I thought I was screwed for a second because I thought I had run out of plumbers tape. But, I found some in the drawer and was able to keep it from leaking.
8:51 - All done. Nothing bad happened. OG was 1.050. Way more than I was expecting. Why? I think I sparged with hotter water. This is good to note. I heated up to 180 for the initial sparge and then made sure is was 170 for the second. I'm glad I didn't throw out the remainder of the hops from the 1oz. The recipe called for 0.75oz initially. After I saw the pre-boil gravity of 1.040 I knew we were in trouble. Actually when I tasted the sparge runoff and gave it to Ellie to try I knew. It tasted way too sweet. Anyhow, because I didn't throw out the rest of the hops I added a little more. I can't say how much. Not the rest of the ounce. I just took a guess. The sample at the end of the brew didn't taste too bitter so I think I did ok. Ellie sampled it at the end of the brew and liked it too.
Also, Ellie spent most of the time out there with me. We just hung out. It was nice husband and wife time.
