Brew #3

I almost didn't fuck up

February the 8th. The day before I had committed to my last orgy of spending before finally tightening my belt on this home brewing business. I’m already a fencer, a smoker, and a drinker. In the effort to alleviate one expensive hobby I’ve created a new one. I keep telling myself that if I brew once a week for the rest of time, I will never have to go to the liquor store again... Deep down inside I know this is a lie.

Anyway, I got my second carboy-- which I NEED. I also got an auto-siphon, which I don’t really need, but man it’s WORTH the $10 for the stress relief. More about that later.

I certainly picked the wrong day to go shopping for ingredients. No problems with the grains and the hops. (Just see the entries for batches 1 and 2) The YEAST however... This is becoming ridiculous...

My home brewing supplier only re-stocks the liquid yeast at the last possible moment to avoid having to throw out stale packets. It’s got to be that way or he losses money. I well understand. The DAY AFTER I would have had EVERYTHING to choose from, but on the 8th, all he had that came remotely close to my two other choices was Wyeast 1275 “Thames Valley”. The little blurb on the web sight goes as fallows:

http://www.wyeastlab.com/beprlist.htm

The temperature range is good for what I've been experiencing lately, and who can turn there nose up at “classic British bitters”. Give me a ruby red bitter, and I’m happy. Especially if it’s classic. I just hope it doesn't also contain historically accurate, classic water from the Thames. That would be gross.

...Speaking of log jams, this backup in my movements of #2, and #1 from primary to secondary, and then to bottling, has held up one important long term development. Soon I want to get my act together and save yeast for later use, or even propagate right off the bat. I couldn't properly do it this time because the yeast in batch 2 was under a thick layer of spent hops, owing to a debacle with my wracking cane. As for #1, I simply forgot that day.

It seams that this packet of 1275 was indeed getting a little long in the tooth. I smacked it long before the mash and when it came time to pitching the package was only half perked up. I always bring a pack to room temperature before smacking, and give it plenty of time. At least I can get that right. It doesn't matter. Half assed is better than no ass.

Back to the batch in question...

THE MASH

I was determined not to screw up this time. My records have consistently shown, that even with a good hot water rinse of the tun, 78° Celsius is NOT high enough a strike temperature. 81° Celsius wasn’t good enough either. This time I went with 83° Celsius -- almost 84° Celsius actually.

Also I gave it 14 Litres instead of 13 Litres. In fact I might have lost count and the mash might have been struck with 15 Litres in the end... Either way it was not TO thin, and guess what -- The grain bed evened out to 70° Celsius at the top, and 66° Celsius down towards the bottom. Plenty of stirring later and it was at either 66° Celsius or 70° Celsius depending on where I stuck the thermometer. A bit on the high side. Perhaps I’ll go with 82° Celsius strike next time, or just pay closer attention to my counting.

Other then that it went fairly well. Started recirculating at [C40:min].

THE SPARGE

This went pretty good. My only goof was to get the water supply fucked up again. It’s that typical problem. I only have two large pots to work with, so by the time my first pot is filled up, my second pot still has a few liters of sparge water in it. Nothing to do but bail the rest into the tun and hope it doesn't spike the temperature.

With sparge water at 95° Celsius, most of the hour long sparge saw a grain bed temperature of 70° Celsius with upper spikes of 75° Celsius - 77° Celsius. After my last minuet maneuver the grain bed hit 82° Celsius. I HOPE that won’t be a problem. Call it an unintentional mash out... I just hope it wont be a MASH OUCH.

THE BOIL

Perfect. I got a hot break 10 Minutes after the sparge was done. Hops, moss, everything went in on schedule. I made a point of putting two thirds of the hops in the first kettle that was ahead of the second kettle as it contained the first runnings, and was therefor much thicker. I have read that a thick boil can interfere with the impartment of acids from the hops, but my goal was cosmetically motivated. If the hops really do grab proteins like Irish moss, I wanted to take a close look. FYI it seamed to work. I’ve seen the trub from a kettle that had NO hops in it and it was a lot muddier. The sort of crap that can sneak into the wracking cane. Granted, that’s week circumstantial evidence at best. That batch had a totally different mash profile, and grist.

THE PITCH

The wort chiller worked as well as could have hoped for. The real joy of this stage was the AUTO SIPHON. It’s more of a pain in the ass to rinse, but it pays that ass back with interest by virtue of it’s one way valve. Earlier... MUCH earlier in the day I had bottled batch #2 with it.

From a fuck up I have mentioned in another place I got the bright idea that I could actually oxygenate the wort by pumping on the thing while the assembly was dry. That sort of worked, for about 30 seconds, but the end of the wracking line just floated to the surface and blew pitiful bubbles. I ended up using the spoon, but I was sure to give it a good 2 minuet thrashing.

The OG came out to 1.052. The wort was clean an dark red, perhaps darker than the last two batches and I’m wondering if it’s due to the higher mash temperatures. As I’m writing this the batch is showing signs that it’s about to erupt into krausen, and shows NO signs of bacteria blooms.

Excellent.