Today's effort was part two in my Christmas brewing adventures.
Another all-grain kit from NB: Tallgrass Buffalo Sweat oatmeal cream stout.
The recipe is as follows:
Mash: 156°F for 60 min
Expected OG: 1.057
Today's brewing went much smoother than yesterday's. I had more of a plan, going off of what I did yesterday. So, I knew exactly what I needed to do. However, I still ran into a couple of issues.
My mash went well today. Even better than yesterday. I hit my mash temp pretty much spot on. And I must have done a better job wrapping my pot with blankets, since the temp only fell just 2 degrees over the entire hour.
Then I drained the bag, suspending it over the pot. During this period, I ran to the HB store to get more yeast. Mr. Malty showed my yeast as having less than 50% viability, since it was manufactured in October. So, since I hadn't made a starter this time, I just got another smack pack of yeast. Then, after getting back, I squeezed out the bag and did a dunk sparge to get all of the sugars out of the grain. I massaged the bag in the sparge water, and then squeezed out the bag some more. I ended up with what I thought was 6.75 gallons of wort, pre-boil, at 1.041 SG.
Here's where things went funky on me. I need to accurately measure my pot volume. I did calculations based on a cylinder, but I must be off somehow. I calculated a pot volume of 7.75 gallons. But after I boiled down to just over 4 inches below the top of the pot, it didn't end up at the volume I expected.
My pot is 14.25" ID x 11.5" H. So, basic math tells us that a true cylinder would be just over 1834 cubic inches, or 7.9 gallons in volume. Take out a little for the radius on the bottom of the pot, and I estimated 7.75 gallons to the top. Also based on these numbers, 1 gallon of wort should equal almost exactly 1.5" in inner height of the pot. So, to get down to 5 gallons of wort, I needed to go down 2.75 gallons, or 4.125" from the top. Now, I measured that height post-boil, and it was almost exactly on. But, I only ended up with 4.5 gallons of beer to ferment in my carboy. So, I have no idea what happened, but I need to measure out where my volumes are on my pot.
In the end, I still made beer. But, it appears that I over-boiled, raising my SG to 1.066.
I guess I'll just have a heavier, more-flavorful beer than anticipated. Oh well! 
Efficiency numbers looked similar to my last batch, clocking in at 72%. If I can keep this up, consistency will help me with future batches.
Brewin' in the snow...
Nice, dark color.
Another all-grain kit from NB: Tallgrass Buffalo Sweat oatmeal cream stout.
The recipe is as follows:
- 7.75lbs Breiss Pale Ale
- 1lb English Roasted Barley
- 1lb German Vienna
- 1/2lb Flaked Oats
- 1/2lb Breiss Victory
- 3/8lb English Black Malt
- 1/2lb Lactose (60 min)
- 1oz Glacier (60 min)
- 1/4oz Willamette (5 min)
- Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite 50
Mash: 156°F for 60 min
Expected OG: 1.057
Today's brewing went much smoother than yesterday's. I had more of a plan, going off of what I did yesterday. So, I knew exactly what I needed to do. However, I still ran into a couple of issues.
My mash went well today. Even better than yesterday. I hit my mash temp pretty much spot on. And I must have done a better job wrapping my pot with blankets, since the temp only fell just 2 degrees over the entire hour.
Then I drained the bag, suspending it over the pot. During this period, I ran to the HB store to get more yeast. Mr. Malty showed my yeast as having less than 50% viability, since it was manufactured in October. So, since I hadn't made a starter this time, I just got another smack pack of yeast. Then, after getting back, I squeezed out the bag and did a dunk sparge to get all of the sugars out of the grain. I massaged the bag in the sparge water, and then squeezed out the bag some more. I ended up with what I thought was 6.75 gallons of wort, pre-boil, at 1.041 SG.
Here's where things went funky on me. I need to accurately measure my pot volume. I did calculations based on a cylinder, but I must be off somehow. I calculated a pot volume of 7.75 gallons. But after I boiled down to just over 4 inches below the top of the pot, it didn't end up at the volume I expected.
My pot is 14.25" ID x 11.5" H. So, basic math tells us that a true cylinder would be just over 1834 cubic inches, or 7.9 gallons in volume. Take out a little for the radius on the bottom of the pot, and I estimated 7.75 gallons to the top. Also based on these numbers, 1 gallon of wort should equal almost exactly 1.5" in inner height of the pot. So, to get down to 5 gallons of wort, I needed to go down 2.75 gallons, or 4.125" from the top. Now, I measured that height post-boil, and it was almost exactly on. But, I only ended up with 4.5 gallons of beer to ferment in my carboy. So, I have no idea what happened, but I need to measure out where my volumes are on my pot.
In the end, I still made beer. But, it appears that I over-boiled, raising my SG to 1.066.
I guess I'll just have a heavier, more-flavorful beer than anticipated. Oh well! Efficiency numbers looked similar to my last batch, clocking in at 72%. If I can keep this up, consistency will help me with future batches.
Brewin' in the snow...
Nice, dark color.
