All went well to start with, strike water at 72.6 deg C gave a mash temp of 62.6 deg C, so a little warmer next time. A quick boil of the kettle and stir brought it up to 66 deg C. An hour and a half later I'd lost less than a degree, which seems reasonable. Mash pH was 5.4, so score one for the CRS additions.
Running off, using my Daab false bottom for the first time, with a gravity of 1.090:
19 l of sparge water into the tun. I've learnt that the 4 or so kg of malt plus 19 l of water is almost exactly the capacity of my mash tun. Stirring was rather messy. Oops. Run off a second time, and all done:
There seemed to be a reasonable amount of wort left in the tun. Perhaps a bottom drain would work better, and use the hole in the side for a thermometer. 24.74 l of 1.040 wort. I was hoping to finish the boil with 23 l of 1.042, so it wasn't looking good. Boiling on the hob took a while to get to temperature. A propane burner is looking more and more attactive.
Cooled in about 12 minutes, better than expected, but then it got interesting. 18 l of wort in the fermenter at 1.060. Frantic scribbling suggested I needed about 7 l-ish more water to take it down to 1.042. Two runs to Sainsburys (having left my wallet behind the first time) gave me some bottles of water. Problem 2, there's not enough space in the fermenter for the calculated top up. I wound up diluting down to 23l, then measured the sg as 1.057. Now thoroughly confused (does having break material in the sample alter the measured gravity?), I tasted (yummy!), pitched S-04 and put in my airlock. 24 hours later, and all seems to be fermenting well.
I'll report back what it tastes like! Even if the gravity is higher than intended, it was fairly hoppy so will hopefully cope.
Lessons learned:
1) I need to practice more with a hydrometer
2) Have spare ingredients handy
3) Find out more about sparging, can I do three batches rather than two?
Now which brew to do once I've emptied the fermenter...
