The guys thought it would be fun to brew a dunkle. Ok. We got the bearded brewer to ship me the ingredients and I kitted it up for the boys. The recipe is from an old BYO article.
10lbs Weyermann Dark Munich Malt
4oz Melanoidin malt
4oz Carafa II
2oz Tettnanger Hops 3.4% AA
Saflager W-34/70. This is a dry yeast. Bearded brewer recommended switching to dry. Let's try it out. I don't think we need to hit it with O2. Dry yeast doesn't need it.
2:30 - I had to build up the new propane burner. I'm really dragging today. Like most days now. Kids keep me from sleeping well. I'm about to measure out the salts for today. I'm going with:
8g - CaCO3 (Chalk)
4g - CaCl
2g - Epsom
3:45 - I don't know why everything is so slow today. I've calibrated my thermometers. Put together the mash tun and the boil kettle. I'm heating up strike water now. I'm going to try for 152F for the mash today. The new burner smells bad.
4:53 - Heating up sparge water. We hit our first snag of the day when it appears that the batteries of the pH meter are dead and it takes coin cell batteries. Second thing came up and that was when I went to clean the keg, there was no PBW. I remembered then that I was out. And I just ordered stuff from MoreBeer. I guess that's how life is. I'm now using OxyClean for the keg. We will see how well it works.
6:02 - Well into the boil now. I've cleaned the mash tun. Made a mess. Got the rig a little wet with wort. So it should be sticky later when I try to move it. I added about a pound of DME to the wort to get the gravity to where I think it will be 1.050. I was really struggling with this for some reason. I would take a sample, add wort and then the gravity number was smaller which is impossible. Eventually I used the pipette to grab wort and sample it. When I was though I got a sample of 1.040 which should be right. I usually pick up 0.010 in the boil. I don't know why suddenly I'm missing my gravities by sooo much. I brew so seldom now I can't find the time to figure it out. It's just what it is at this point. I've now moved beer ingredients to the fridge in the back yard. I'm hoping this will allow the serving fridge to air out.
8:15 - All done. O.G will be over 1.050. I was worried at first since the hydrometer measured in at 1.040 but then I realized I took it straight from the kettle which was still hot. So I probably added a little too much DME but it tasted a little bit bitter when I sampled it so maybe it will all balance out. I ran out of ice. Luckily there was enough in the freezer. I got the plate chiller to cool the wort down to 62ish. That works since I can slowly walk the beer down to 55 over the next day or so. Bugsy came in to "help" me clean. I asked him to stay in the garage or he would have to leave. That was bouncing off the walls hard and couldn't "control his body" as his former teachers used to say. Eventually he left the garage one too many times and dad kicked him out. Not so sad since he was hungry anyway.
Anyway that ends the day. I need PBW. Maybe I'll add in something to clear up the cider I'm thinking of making. I picked some up at the store while I was getting water and ice. I'm thinking of returning Gavin's bottle with some.
