Brew #30 - Another Nut Brown

This brew, we wanted to try to reproduce last time, but with several technique and method adjustments. First, we acquired our own grain mill and so were able to crush our grain ourselves (to see what affect that would have). Secondly, we tied our bags off with butcher twine (rather than knotting the bags themselves), thus allowing greater grist movement and hopefully better starch conversion. Lastly, we made yeast starters for (hopefully) quicker and better fermentation.

Ingredients

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Same as last time...

• 15 lbs 2-row malt
• 1 lbs Special B Malt
• 3 lbs Crystal 20°
• 0.75 lbs. Chocolate Malt
• 1oz Northern Brewer (9.6% AA)
• 1oz Fuggles (3.8% AA)
• White Labs British Ale Yeast WLP005
• White Labs N. Yorkshire Square Yeast WLP037

Mash Method

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04/18/2015

Our strike water temperature goal was 175°F and, while we did strike at that temperature, I think we must have been in a slightly cold spot, since the initial mash temp was 180ish°F after mixing. We had to turn off the heat and let it drop for about twenty minutes before it got in the mid 150's, and we had to futz with the heat continually for the next hour in order to maintain a somewhat consistent temperature.

(side note: mashing with grains in tied-up bags is rather difficult, as the temperature seems to be rather inhomegenous and difficult to control.)

Regardless, after an hour (before sparging), our mash gravity was 1.066 which, as we would later find out, was on the money for 80% mash efficiency. Pretty excellent!

We heated up some more water and rinsed the individual bags out thoroughly in it (fresh hot water for each), then dumped that wort into the boil pot and squeezed the everliving crap out of the bags to get as much wort as possible. Then...

Brew Method

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04/18/2015

Same as last time...

• 0.5oz Northern Brewer, 60 minutes
• 0.5oz Northern Brewer, 30 minutes
• 1oz Fuggles, 15 minutes
• 1tsp Irish Moss (all that remained), 15 minutes

Killed the heat, took a gravity reading with refractometer - 1.056! Whaaaaat. We WAY underestimated our efficiency. Thanks to this, though, we can downsize our base malt to 11.66 lbs instead of 15lbs. This will actually allow us to make three more batches with our bag of malt. Hooray!

Fermentation

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4/18/2015

Put five gallons in one carboy, pitched the WLP005 starter. Put 2.5 gallons in another carboy directly on top of last brew's WLP037 yeast cake. Put another 1.5 gallons (wound up with a clogged chiller and could not get the last gallon out of the boil pot) in another carboy and pitched the WLP037 starter.

Bottling

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Tasting Notes

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MM/DD/YY

Tasting notes