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