----------------------------MASH----------------------------
1.) Measure out your water. If you’re using city water, it’s best to run it slowly (about 1 gal/min) through a carbon filter while you’re measuring.
2.) Heat water up to 2-5F more than your strike temperature to compensate for temperature loss while transferring to the mash tun. To minimize temperature loss, try warming up your mash tun by filling it with hot water and leaving it sealed for a few minutes before transferring.
3.) Slowly add your grain, constantly stirring to maximize exposure.
4.) Check that your temperature is on target and seal your mash tun. Once completely stirred in, your
mash should have roughly the consistency of watery oatmeal.
Temperature corrections: always aim a couple of degrees higher than your target (but always lower than 168F). It’s much easier to bring your temperature down a few degrees by stirring in small handfuls of ice (2 cubes is approximately -1F) than having to bring it up by adding boiling hot water a quart at a time.
----------------------------LAUTER AND SPARGE----------------------------
1.) Heat up your sparge water to 2-5F higher than desired sparge temperature. Then, transfer the water to the hot liquor tank (HLT) and carefully place your HLT in position above the mash tun.
2.) Position your kettle below the mash tun to prepare for the lauter.
3.) Recirculate your mash. Partially open the valve on your mash tun so that a moderate stream of
sweet wort comes out. Use 2 pitchers or large measuring cups to catch this stream; you will notice a lot of small particles floating in the wort for the first couple minutes. As each pitcher fills, replace it with the empty and gently pour the full pitcher back into the mash tun. Continue doing this until you your wort is free of particulates.
4.) Begin lautering into the kettle. Set up sparge arm above grain bed and open valve on HLT partway to begin sparge. Adjust flow rates out of your mash tun and HLT to maintain 1 inch or so of water above the grain bed. Continue until you reach your target boil volume.
----------------------------BOIL----------------------------
1.) Bring your wort to a boil. Watch for boil overs! Once you achieve a stable, rolling boil, slowly add your first hop addition and start your timer for 60 minutes (counting down). Add all subsequent boil additions at their appropriate times.
2.) Sanitize any equipment that will come into contact with your wort after the boil: airlock, stopper, wine thief, aeration stone, etc.
3.) Add your wort chiller to the pot near the end of the boil. You want it to spend a couple minutes at boiling temperatures to sanitize it. Be sure to connect the hoses before putting it into your pot.
4.) Once you’re finished boiling, start your cooldown by turning on the hose connected to your wort chiller to a slow rate of flow. The water coming out should be steaming hot, so be sure the outflow hose is directed somewhere safe.
a. Remember that you can increase the effectiveness of the wort chiller by agitating the wort in the pot or connecting another coil and submerging it in ice water to act as a pre-chiller.
5.) Use a sanitized metal spoon to rapidly stir your cooled wort to create a whirlpool. The hop sediment and other break material will be sucked to the center of the pot, and if you allow it to settle for 10-15 min, it will sink to the bottom. This allows you to rack off the clear wort, leaving the trub behind.
6.) Once cooled to fermentation temperature, whirlpooled, and settled out, rack into sanitized fermentor.
----------------------------PITCH----------------------------
1.) Take a sample of your wort and use your hydrometer to measure your original gravity.
2.) Oxygenate your wort by shaking the carboy for 5 min or spraying pure O2 for 30 seconds.
3.) Sanitize the exterior of the yeast package and use sanitized scissors to open.
4.) Add your yeast to your fermentor. Fill your airlock with sanitizer and fix in place with the stopper.
----------------------------DRY HOP----------------------------
1.) To add extra hop aroma to this recipe by dry-hopping, wait until the fermentation is almost or entirely complete:
a. Bubbling activity in the airlock should have slowed or stopped entirely.
b. After 10 days it’s safe to assume your fermentation has ceased.
2.) Remove airlock, add your dry hop addition to the fermentor (no need to sanitize the hops),
reinstall airlock.
3.) Wait 6 days before packaging.
