My pot runneth over

This weeks brew is called a "Belgian Wit." It should really be called, "Next time brew with a buddy."

I originally started out this day thinking I was going to brew a 10 gallon recipe and split it in 2. It turned out to be 12 gallon recipe and a smidgen more.

If you folks have been keeping up you might know about my brew equipment issues as of late.I decided to make a couple of changes for this brew. The first thing was the replacement of my ring manifold for the mash tun. It was pretty easy to do. Besides, the blood I lost from dealing with the steel braid was like a badge of honor.

The second thing was to mill my own grain. The Mrs got me a grain mill for my B-Day, so it seemed like the perfect time to try it out.

I had no idea what I was getting into and it was a beatiful thing.

My efficiencies went through the roof. I never had such a high efficiency out of my brew equipment. A small problem ensued. The OG I was reading before the boil was too high for the style. No biggie, I'll just add a little more water and a little more hop to correct for it.

Let me say this, I thought my brew pot was pretty big. It can hold 15 gallons of water/wort. It just barely held my wort for the boil.

For the uninformed, when you boil water you increase it's volume by 4 percent. I had 14.82 gallons of wort in a 15 gallon pot and I was trying to get it to a boil. During the boil I lost a little wort, but that wasn't the worse part.

I had no idea how truly heavy it is to move 15 gallons of beer around. Anyone who has ever moved a beer keg will know what I'm talking about. The one nice thing about a beer keg is that you can roll it. You can't roll a brew pot that's full. Even worse, I had to lift the brewpot full of wort 4 ft off the ground to fill my carboys with wort. Can you say, "Owe!" My back hurt for two days after it was all over.

Shockingly, there was still more wort to recover from the grain. I was able to make a small beer from the second runnings bringing my year of beer total to 27 beers.

Truly, my pot runoff over.

Beer Nerd Stuff: 

Beer Style: Wit

Batch Size: 12.0 Gallons

Grains:

• 0.25 lb       Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM)
• 11.00 lb      Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.2 SRM)
• 11.00 lb      Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)

Hops

• 2.00 oz       Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %]  (60 min)
• 1.00 oz       Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min)
• 1.00 oz       Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 min)

Yeast:

• 2 Pkgs        Belgian Wit Ale (White Labs #WLP400)      Yeast-Wheat

Mash Type:

• Single Infusion, Full Body
  

OG:

• 1.053 SG

Notes:

This recipe after boil was split in two. One will be left as is. The other will have blueberries added to the secondary fermentor. 

Don't speaka the English

Northern English Brown Ale this week.

I thought I fixed my mash tun ring mainfold last week, but it's looks like I didn't. My efficiency (sugars I extracted from the wort) were really low. Time to bite the bullet and make a new manifold.

Beer Nerd Stuff: 

Beer Style: Northern English Brown Ale

Batch Size: 4.18 Gallons

Grains:

• 1.00 lb       Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) 
• 7.00 lb       Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
• 1.00 lb       Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
• 0.25 lb       Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM)

Hops

• 0.50 oz       Challenger [7.00 %]  (60 min)
• 0.50 oz       Fuggles [4.50 %]  (30 min)

Yeast:

• 1 Pkgs        British Ale (Wyeast Labs #1098)

Mash Type:

• Single Infusion, Full Body
  

OG:

• 1.048 SG

Beer Good, Maple Beer Better

Not much to say about this brew day. Nice weather and everything went according to plan for a change.

A simple recipe for an American Brown Ale with maple syrup for the secondary. Add some pancakes and what a breakfast this would make. Yum.

Beer Nerd Stuff: 

Beer Style: American Brown Ale

Batch Size: 5.0 Gallons

Grains:

• 7.00 lb       Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
• 0.50 lb       Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
• 0.25 lb       Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)
• 0.25 lb       Special Roast (50.0 SRM)
• 1.00 lb       Maple Syrup (35.0 SRM) (Put in secondary)

Hops

• 1.00 oz       Centennial [8.50 %]  (60 min)
• 0.50 oz       Williamette [5.80 %]  (30 min)

Yeast:

• 1 Pkgs         American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale

Mash Type:

• Single Infusion, Full Body
  

OG:

• 1.042 SG

Mild In Flavor, Not In Labor

English Mild this week. For such a simple beer it was a true pain in the butt.

I had a horrendous stuck sparge with this beer. There was nothing that I could do to get the wort following. I tried hot water (172 degrees Fahrenheit), stirring the mash...nothing worked. Finally, with the help of the Mrs. we did it the hard way using colanders and plastic buckets. Can you say that wort is, ouch, hot! Nothing like first degree wort burns. I tasted the wort and it was somewhat astringent, but I knew there was nothing I could really do about it.

I found out later that the ring manifold in my mash tun had a couple of really big dents in it that caused the stuck sparge. This was probably the same culprit that caused the lack of sugar in my wort the previous brew. I never even considered that I would have to do periodic maintenance with my brew system during the year of beer. It gives me that much more respect for the microbreweries that are out there cranking through beer on a weekly basis. I'll be paying much more attention to equipment maintenance as the year goes on. It also makes the beer I produce that much sweeter.

Beer Nerd Stuff: 

Beer Style: Mild

Batch Size: 5.0 Gallons

Grains:

• 5.00 lb       Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
• 0.50 lb       Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM)
• 0.08 lb       Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
• 1.00 lb       Turbinado (10.0 SRM)

Hops

• 1.00 oz       Goldings, B.C. [5.00 %]  (60 min)

Yeast:

• 1 Pkgs        American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)

Mash Type:

• Single Infusion, Full Body
  

OG:

• 1.032 SG