WOOO first PM

[speeddemon190]

My first PM was a success, Shooting for a vanilla porter, its also my first attempt at creating my own recipe through brewersfriend.com. Here is the recipe

3lb light LME
5lb 2 row
1lb chocolate malt
.5lb crystal 60L
2 oz roasted barley

1 oz norther brewer (9.9%)

1 wyeast american ale 1056 smack pack

2 vanilla beans for secondary.

OG=1.051 (per brewersfriend.com)
est FG =1.013
abv=5.04%
ibu=26.03
srm=30.07

I mashed all the grains in just over 2 gallons of water. heated the water to 165. after grains were added strike water was 150 degrees. Stirred every 20 min for 60 min. At the end of the mash temp was 140 degrees.

I then took the grains, drained them and put them into 2 gallons of 160 degree water to sparge. after 20 min and lots of stirring, i drained the grain and combined the two pots of wort.

Then brought to a boil and continued as usual.

After i brought the wort down to 60 degrees and topped of with just over a gallon of water I took a hydrometer reading and it read 1.054
3 points over my goal. WOOOO!

I finished the process at about 11pm last night and at 12 this afternoon there was airlock activity and the cellar smelled delicious (its not really a delicious smell, but fermenting wort is a delicious smell to me )

I would like to thank DeathBrewer for his article on easy PM. Your article made the brew day go much smoother than I had planned.

 

[azazel1024]

Yes. Yes his article was awesome and it is what pushed me in to AG brewing.

I shan't go back (unless forced to, but probably the furthest "back sliding" I'll do is PM since I only have the equipment to do 3.75G AG batches at most. I can do up to 5G PM though, but 2.5 and 3.75G AG is fine for most of what I want to brew).