Doing an hour mash and boil I figured I'd get done and cleared up by 10:30.
As it'll be doing it's thang while we're away over Easter, a suitably themed name...
The dark crystal was a late addition, I planned on 7% plain crystal but ran out!
I got the water treated and weighed out the grains and a little Gypsum on Tuesday and got the mash liquor on at 5:35 as soon as I came home.
Doughing-in
Mash temperature just about spot on
Put to bed in the house for an hour - lost nearly 4°C, I must get round to putting a couple more layers of Therawrap round the tun!
My rather Heath Robinson approach to sparging- a pizza baking tray
. Stuck to start with but a gentle blow up the tube got things going.I've only just switched to fly sparging, whilst I'm not noticing any change in efficiency (still around 75%) I do get a much better run off compared to batch sparging as the grain bed is not disturbed.
First runnings
Hops ready to go in
Time for a pint of Bridge Bitter from my new shiny font- cheers for the heads up from whoever it was on here who spotted it on E-Bay- a bargain at 99p (+ £17 postage)
First wort hops go in as the boil starts
Nice rolling boil. I've knocked a load of time from by brewdays buy using a HLT (next project is to get an element in there) and getting the boiler elements on as soon as they are covered. As opposed to sparging from the boiler and running of into a lauter tun then tipping into the boiler when done sparging.
Cooling
Finally got round to using the Thames Vally II that Barnsely Brewer kindly sent me- Cheers BB
Cold break. Protafloc is so much better that Irish Moss
Nice clear wort. I've taken to letting the wort rest after removing the chiller before filling the FV, 20 minutes ensures a lovely clear wort
A whole loda filth
Hydro sample spot on @ 1.040
Pitching the yeast.
Close enough to 23l in the FV
And all done before 10 O'clock- a nice evenings work
After 17 brews, I think I've got this brewing lark sussed, the last 3 brews or so have gone really well. With this brew taking less taking less than 4 1/2 hours I'll be brewing in the evenings more often!
Cheers,
Jamie
