Ryan got all the bugs worked out (no pun intended), and brewed up a few fantastic batches for his wedding. Knowing this, I finally got off my slack ass (well, Ryan said, "wanna brew this weekend?") and made up yet another "Fridge Cleaner" recipe to help lower our stock of old grain and hops.
If you are interested, here is the recipe.
We got started a little late, around 13:00, and wanted to take a lot of new pictures with the new camera. The grain selection went fine, with a quick off-the-cuff substitution of roasted barley for black barley. We used up the last of the Marris Otter bag and milled it all down.
I adjusted the water chemistry to be a little closer to England. Mash in went well with me manning the pipe (if you know what I mean), and Ryan doing the stirring. Target temp was 154F and we nailed it.
Minh made us some pizza and we snacked while waiting on the starch magic.
An hour later, we fired up the recirc (at that point Ryan realized he didn't put the stainless scrunchy under the false bottom, but *shrug* whatcha gonna do) and ran it for 25 minutes. It's a dark beer, and a little bit of bits aren't going to make much difference. A quick swap of the hoses and we were filling the kettle. For kicks, and because I'm a hop head, I threw in a handful of Northern Brewer as the level raised. Around 10 gallons, we fired up the burner to get things rolling, and topped off at 13 gallons. Eventually, finally, grudgingly it came to a boil. Hops were thrown in, a steady hand kept the top from coming off, and time passed.
We collected just under 10 gallons into two carboys - a 6 gallon Better Bottle, and a 7 gallon glass. We pitched packs of WYeast 1028 (London Ale), an old one (from January) and a fresh pack. The old one really didn't seem to have a lot of life in it, but I'm hoping the aggressive oxygenation of the wort will kick it in - we'll see.
Cleanup took a while now that we (well, Ryan) has found that total disassembly is needed to get into all the corners. It's worth it though. Pouring out beer sucks.
We hit a gravity of 1.064 from a target of 1.065. Not too bad. Smells and tastes great already. If the yeast kicks in, we'll have 10 gallons of greatness - if not, well, 5 gallons doesn't suck.
