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| By Tom K on Jan 5th 2007, 4:53 am | Permalink |
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I've been lurking and occasionally posting in the forums for about a year, but I just stumbled into the journal today. Love it! I brewed today, and it was supposed to be my first AG. I'd done a few mini-mashes in the pot or a cooler, but I haven't put together my cheap-n-easy yet. I did a batch today that was basically two mini-mashes instead of one mini-mash and extract. My pot is 3 gallons, so to do a full boil, I have to do it half a batch at a time. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a big hassle. It is. But I haven't geared up all the way yet, and I'm in flux on the job thing right now, so I don't need to be buying brewing gear until I'm making more money. The wife wants us to be all responsible and stuff.  Anyway, I was shooting for a scottish ale, on the border between light and heavy. 1.035. I'd been talking with a buddy about oak, and so I threw this one out of style and into weird territory by adding some bourbon-soaked oak chips to primary. We'll see what we get. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First half of the batch went well, and I was doing the second half when I got weak in the knees. My last mini-mash was only 60% efficient, and the LHBS had had problems crushing my grain this time. Had to run it through twice. It looked good, but I lacked confidence. In my moment of weakness, I tossed in a half-pound of dry extract, just as an insurance policy to keep from brewing water. You see where this is going, right? Got it all in the fermenter, ready to pitch at 75F, and I check the SG. 1.046. 73% efficiency. Crap. Fired me right up into export territory! Pitched the yeast, and I'm headed to bed. I'm not annoyed or anything. I'm glad my efficiency is climbing, and it'll be a fine beer. But I'm not going to have predictable results until I get my setup together. Time to raid the piggybank and get that 30qt pot and a cheap-n-easy! |
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