My target mash was 66º and I decided to try a 60 min mash for the first time. I hit my mash temp spot in (which is a first on the mash tun) BUT it seems the tun has a crack on the inner wall where the tap has been fitted, meaning liquor (and wort) seep through into the vacuum between the two walls of the cool box and eventually out of the tap fitting. This coupled with a slight underestimation of how much wort 200g of hops would hold means I was 2ltrs short on collected wort. The 60 min mash wasn't really a roaring success either as I missed my post boil target SG by 4 points (1.088 @ 20ºc). I cant calculate my mash efficiency on this as I'd already added the extra sugar when I took a pre-boil gravity reading (which came out at 1.068 @ 20ºc) meaning that the figures would be wrong but I estimate about a 55% mash efficiency. Something else to take into consideration when working with a small volume in the boiler would be that my IC only partially submerges so wasn't that effective. I pitched 1 pack of US-05 and top cropped more US-05 from one of my other currently fermenting beers.
Regardless of the slight problems, I have 11 ltrs of wort fermenting away very happily and I should still see 10% out of it.... Oh and it smells AMAZING!!
Grain:
What a way to get through 200g hops:
bang on mash temp:
mid brew bevvy.. orange squash:
Flame out hops added.... hop soup! IC not quite submerged!!
Left overs (that's 4 inches deep!!):
Post brew bevvy:
This morning:
