Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Batch two down

Last friday in addition to bottling my IPA I brewed an oatmeal stout. Excepting the sparge which had a small hiccup, this batch went a lot smoother. In the sparge, I couldn't get a good filter bed setup and my sparge got totally clogged. In trying to unclog it I dislodged the hose from the false bottom and all hope was lost. However, as they say, "necessity is the mother of invention." I dumped my grain back into the mash pot and worked on the false bottom I was using in my sparge container (a 5 gallon cooler with a rubber "bung" installed where the spigot used to be). Basically, I cut a rubber hose length-wise and fitted that around the perimeter of the false bottom. Then I cut another length of hose and made a circle of hosing. I placed that circle under the false bottom and hooked it all up again. Here's some lame ASCII art that is a profile of the setup...


| |
| |
| |
| |
| | 5 gallon cooler
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |-----0-------- hose through rubber
|{----------}|<- bung and into false bottom
| | ^ | | \
------------ false bottom with hose around it
^ ^
circle of hose


This setup worked like a charm. I just dumped the mash in and let it sit occassionally adding hot water. Basically the hose around the false bottom made a better seal with the sides of the cooler, and the extra hose on the bottom blocked out and remaining grain that may have slipped passed the false bottom; it also gave a little extra space that allowed better wort flow.

After the initial sparge challenge, I ended up with TOO MUCH wort. I had almost 7.5 gallons in my 8gallon kettle so I started to boil over, and had to dump out half a gallon. After that, I boiled down to 5 gallons and pitched the yeast after cooling the yeast (a chiller is a FINE thing... took only 20 minutes). Fermentation got going really strong after about 12 hours, and wrapped up within 4 days. I just racked it the first time tonight.

Bittering Hops:
1 oz Willamette
1 oz Chinook

Finishing Hops:
1 oz Willamette

OG: 1.072
FG: 1.031

So, that should me ABV of 5.371. Not bad, and the initial taste test is promising.

Lots of people complain about the hard work involved in brewing and how it's just so easy to buy microbrews. I kinda like it. For now at least.

5 comments:

  1. good luck with the beer! Im a whisky man myself. Lagavulin, a good islay.. mm...
    in a round about way, found your blog from an entry in 43things about cycling the blue ridge parkway.. turns out your from harrisonburg va, where my fiancee is from too! small world..
    I havnt cycled the BRP but I have hiked it (appalachian trail).. very pretty, but you see more hiking it than cycling it...
    laters mate...

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  2. I love whiskey as well... Some close family friends are from Scotland. Matt introduced me to his vast collection. I thoroughly enjoyed EVERY chance I got to share with him. I like Laphraoig, and I had a manger's select Glen Morangie that was really nice.
    Crazy that your fiance is from H'burg. Where are you located now?

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  3. right now, middlesbrough UK, just south of the scottish border :) but i am an aussie from melbourne australia.. and I guess Im going to end up a harrisonurger for a while... gotta be 'approved' by the usa to move over there and get married. lots of paperwork :( be easier for me to go to to mexico or canada and hike across the border. Id have a better chance of making it. shesh. the paperwork is enourmous.

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  4. Small world. The friend I mentioned is back in Edinburgh (not that you'd ever bump into each other).
    Well... If you make it over to Harrisonburg, drop me a line. We can go get a beer. There's a place (about the only good one) that I go pretty regularly called Calhoun's.

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  5. I tried to drink in calhouns, didnt have my passport, despite being 28 they wouldnt serve me :) they did have some fancy home brew available..
    my fiancee just said its snowing buckets in h'burg.. have fun. Im off to do some ruby coding.

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