Draft Master Flash
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2021
- Messages
- 137
- Reaction score
- 89
I'm new to Homebrew and just completed my 2nd batch. It is Eskimo Amber extract I got from a kit purchased from MoreBeer. My first batch was a 1 gallon kit called Simply Beer Bavarian Blonde. I did that kit stovetop and it turned out really good. So after watching many YouTube videos, I started my first 5 gallon batch using a Digiboil electric kettle. I wasn't quite sure to first heat the strike water up to a certain tempertaure then start steeping the grains or just start steeping grains immediately. I waited till the water was 85f then decided to start steeping grains. My first mistake was pouring in grains while the muslim bag was in kettle. I ended up spilling some of the grains into the kettle outside the muslim bag. I quickly grabbed a strainer from my kitchen and started fishing out the spilled grains as much as I could. Lesson learned, add the grains to the bag over a bowl outside kettle. After 30 minutes I removed what grains that were in the muslim bag from the kettle. Then I set temperature to 221f and once it came to a boil i proceeded to add the liquid malt extract. Mistake #2, I think I added the malt extract too quickly. Although I did turn off the heat some of the liquid extract must of fell to the bottom because my Digiboil stopped working and read "E3" error. Well, as a noob I was thinking OMG I am going to end up dumping my first 5 gallon batch!. After about 15 minutes of fiddling around the kettle came back on and then I was able to come to a boil and witness the "hot break". At 60 minutes I added the Cascade hops using a hop spider then patiently waited. With 15 minutes left of the 60 minute boil I put the immersion wort chiller in the kettle and naturally it killed the boil. Not worried about that because it didn't go below 180f. At 10 minutes left I added the remaining hop and at 5 minutes the whirlock. When the wort cooled down I transferred into fermenter, took a sample for the hydrometer and pitched yeast. The original gravity is 1050. It is now fermenting a 68f. I noticed that there was a considerable amount of grains that I spilled sitting on the bottom of kettle as well as some burnt black sticky crud. T'm thinking this is what cause the "E3" error. It took some major elbow grease to get off all that crud clean. Since grains supposedly release tannins over 170f I'm wondering how this batch is going to end up tasting. Everthing was sanitized properly so I'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.
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