Home Brew Forum

After sucess on my mirst AG attemp in November , and I've aso done another smaller brew for the Better-half since with pretty much the same process, I started my third AG last night.
I'm making an SNPA clone to Mysterio's recepie:


It all went wrong at the first sparge, I'm using the mini-mash bucket-inside-a-bucket settup, i've used it twice with the same grains and quantities no problem, but after the 60min initial mash it would not drain a drop???? I don't know what's changed, I tried adding more water to get it moving, mistake, I tried stiring it up and letting the grain bed settle, that just made it sloppy. To cut a long story short, I ended up having to empty the Tun and drill bigger holes in the bottom ofthe bucket, put the grain and wart back in and run off a gallon to get the bed to settle, then slowly syphon the runnings back through, adding sparge water to get the temperature back up towards 68'c. During all this the temerature of the grain has fluctuated between 60 and 70 and even got down to 50 at one point. By some mirrical I got a pre-boil of within .008 of target but I dont know what all the temerature fluctuation will have done to it.




The boil went faily smoothlym, I used whirlfloc and my imersion chiler for the first time, it's nearly as big as my boil pot and cooled from 100'c to 30'c in 8 min and I got the most amazing cold break,

I was verry happy with that.

I was using hop pellets for the first time though and they were a supprize, what a mess they make when your trying to get the wart into the fermenter. I just pour through a screen and I had to stop half a dozen times to clean the screen. I'll have a bucket and blade ready nextime

anyway I got it all settup, (OG = 1.046 target was 1.054) and pitched about 1/2L of my 1L yeast starter and went to bed, this morning nothing going on in the FV so I've pitched the rest of the yeast starter and I'm just waiting in hope!

Have I killed it completly at some point in all the mess?
Is there anything else I can do to get the ferm started?

I doubt you've killed it. Contrary to popular belief, you do have to try hard to wreck a beer, usually in it's later stages once fermentation is complete.

Just give it a bit more time, I'm sure it will kick into life and all will be fine

Yeah, I second that. Wort will tolerate quite a bit of mishandling as long as you keep infection out. You got a lower extraction than you expected but that will still be OK. Assuming your yeast was healthy and pitched at about 20 dgrees then it should take off OK. You won't quite get the beer you wanted but that can be part of the fun.

Have faith. The great beer god will look after you.

Looks like it's just starting to form a white layer on the top now! Phew!