Brewed 9/28/14. I accidentally under struck (153F instead of 163F) the water and had to top up with a gallon of boiling water (strike was 29 quarts then). Hit 147F which is a bit low but decided to leave it at that. I added more salts to adjust. I only recirculated about a half gallon because I didn't want to cool it too much. The pH ended up being 5.2. Not sure why as it was predicted to be 5.6 but that is an acceptable range. I decided to add a half ounce of hops at 90min to help prevent boil over. I ended up collecting about 9.75 - 10gal of wort. Pre-boil gravity was 1.064 which put the kettle efficiency at 79%. At about 20min left in the boil I cranked it up because I was worried there was too much wort still. Probably should not have done that as I ended up a bit short. I ended up with about 5.2 to 5.3 gallons in the fermenter. I topped off with prolly about a quart of water which in retrospect I didn't need to do as I am going to add corn sugar but oh well. OG was similar to what I predicted although I wanted to maybe get a bit better efficiency. Pitch was about 68F but I plan on fermenting it a bit lower. 9/29 I iced the brew down a bit last night and it was sitting at 65F in the morning. I also dosed it again with about a minute of oxygen. By evening it had risen up to about 67F so I cooled it down again to about 65F. 9/30 morining it had heated up to about 67F so I cooled it back down to about 63F. I iced it periodically throughout the day and by evening it was up to 67F so I cooled it down to about 65F. 10/1 by morning the beer was sitting at about 65F. I added the corn sugar mid day and it kicked the volume up to about 6gal. I put in a bit more % wise then I wanted to because of the dilution factor. By evening it had heated up to about 68F so I cooled it back down to about 65F. 10/2 the temp had risen up to about 67F by the morning. I am planning on just letting it rise up slowly. Fermentation on this beer hasn't been as vigorous as I expected. Maybe because I pitched so much yeast. 10/3 I have kept the fermentation temps below 70F and mostly hovering around 68F. 10/5 took the beer outta the swamp bath. Last couple of days it was hovering more around 70F. The ferm has slowed down but still going. 10/6 the brew is still fermenting but it has slowed a bit (not much yeast has settled out yet though), sitting at about 76F. 10/9 ferm is pretty much done, there is still a little bit of foamy krausen on the top though. 10/10 fermentation seems to have quelled. Took a gravity reading on 10/13 which makes it way drier than I expected. Guess maybe the low mash and corn sugar dried it out a bit and made it ferment more. Tasted the sample and it was quite alcoholic and possibly a bit cidery. 10/20 dry hopped. 10/24 I biofined the brew with 2 tbls. 10/26 cold crashed. Kegged on 10/28. 11/19 decided to dry hop it more with 3.5oz in the keg because hops are fading. Beer was initially very boozy and dry but after a couple weeks in the keezer it blended together really nicely and is malty and a bit hoppy. Most dynamic change flavor wise I have ever seen in a beer.
