Morning!
Grain bill, for all purposes was 7 lbs and water I used for mashing was 1.5qt/lb or about 2.65 gallons. It was pretty close to that. all of the grains, Munich Dark (5.5lb), Munich 10L (.5lb), Carafa II (3.75 oz), Melanoid malt (.75 lb) was all ground ground and went into the mash tun. Water was 160 to start. Stirred, but added about 1/3 tsp of Amylase Enzyme into the whole. 1 hour later, iodine showed blue, so I took out about 3 qts of grain liquid and boiled it on the stove for probably 10 minutes and added it back in during a stir.
Checked again in about 15 min, still blue, but temp was 151 deg F. so just stirred and lid.
Home made mash tun from 5 gal Rubbermaid orange (GOTT) cooler modified with circle of SS screen at the bottom connected to tubing to go out of the mash tun, valve on outside on same length of hose.
Checking again, there was no color from the small dab of "mash" water in my small white bowl. (used about 1 tsp of mash water) so conversion was done.
Started draining into my Bayou Classic kettle. before adding water to the mash tun I checked the gravity which was 1.083. Kept adding heated fresh water from a large pan on the stove to the grains to drain out more of the wort. By the time I got done, and according to the line I was at the 4 gal mark in the kettle.
At that point I checked the gravity and it was at 1.051 so I started the boiling.
Start of boiling I added 12 gram Crystal hops (AA 4.8%) with 8g of Hallertau (Yakima AA=3.8%) I saved the 20 g of 100% Hallertau for the final addition. I only had 1 oz (28 g) of both Hallertau and Crystal in the refrigerator.
Set timer for 50 minutes and stirred occasionally, while internet browsing and sipping my Bell's Porter.
After timer, I added the pelleted 20 oz or Hallertau hops (AA 3.8) to the boil, and at the end of the next 10 minutes I added the SS cooling coil and got it all hooked up.
Little over an hour from start of the boil I shut off the gas and started the cold water running in the heat exchanges. Stirring occasionally to help with cooling. Got it down to 65 deg F in pretty short order (we live in the country and our well water is pretty cold)
Took out the cooler and got a sample and checked the Brix/ S.G. It was back up to 1.060 and a bit high at 6.35% ABV
Ran the wort out the bottom valve through a wide funnel with a pretty tight nylon screen in it to a 5 gallon bucket and had to stop a few times to get the green gunk (assuming hops) off the screen to continue. Got that all done except for just a bit of sediment, leave and crap at the bottom of the kettle
Started more straining from bucket to fermentor (plastic 5 gal pet) and got out some more green sediment. I added about 1/2 gallon of my water (from winery) to the bucket and added in the wort from the fermentor. rechecked gravity and now it's at 1.052 for final gravity.
So by best guess is from 7 lbs of grist I ended up after boil with a little over 3.75 gals. of wort. Color is dark, but not black, more of a very dark brown.
Still have a bit of sediment at the bottom of the fermentor and going to rack the clearer stuff off that lees (sediment) so the beer will ferment without so much left over hops. and "other".
I understand some don't even rack off the green sediment B4 starting fermentation?
Addendum: racked and have about 3.60 gals, so probably had 3.75 gallons of wort after water additions, after boil. Took a small sample of the post boil wort (before any water additions in the aeration and straining) and this was from the bottom of the kettle, settled, poured off just a bit of sediment, to work this morning (Winery) and centrifuged the sample and read the Brix on our 16-8 Brix hydrometer, which read 14.50 corrected for temp. pH on our Hach Sen-Sion pH meter was 5.47. So I recorded those numbers. Remember, post boil was diluted to 1.052 with plain water since I wanted something in the range of 5.43 % ABV.
