ACTUAL RESULTS:
SG: 1.058 (Going for 1.062)
OG: 1.078 (Going for 1.080)
FG: 1.0XX (Going for 1.014-5)
Yeast starter was made from one smack pack, starting on Wednesday night. Stepped up on Thursday night with another liter. Fridged Friday night. Drained Sat morning and added 16oz of the 1.04 sparge water while the wort was boiling. 800ml of wort/yeast slurry went into the wort.
Strike temperature was significantly hotter than what I normally do. The water in the cooler was around 176 degrees. After adding the grain, it took quite a bit of stirring to get down to 152. It went from around 160 to 152 in about 5 minutes. Also poured in about .5 gallon of room temp water to bring down the temp. Between the 6.25 gallons and the approx. .8 gallons of infusion water, I only rendered 3.7 gallons. Giving me an absorption/dead space volume of 3.3 for the 16.25lbs of grain. Mashed for about 65 minutes once the lid was shut. Gave it a stir around 30 minutes in and the temp was steady around 151-152.
Second runnings were 1.04 and pulled out a tad over 4 gallons.
The only difference between this boil and the original was that I put the bittering hops in a fine mesh bag. I wanted to avoid having my bittering hops end up in the in the carboy since I didn't filter on the way in. Only the first 1oz of Citra went directly into the boil. All other hop editions were put in muslin bags. I also over-cooled the wort and brought it down to about 158 so I waited a couple hours for it to warm up to around 162ish while at the same time cooling my yeast starter. Total liquid probably a hair under 6 (with a lot of sediment).
6 hours in and I barely notice any activity in the carboy, which was concerning given the speed in which the previous batch took off. I attribute this to the cooler start temperature.
8 hours in a small film of fluffy white foam has appeared. Looks like the carboy now has a slight effervescence. Temp warmed to 164. Added a liter of ice to the bag to regulate the temp rise.
17 hours in and blow off tube is passing CO2 (upped my BO container size to a growler this time). About an inch of foam and there is very noticeable effervescence in the carboy. The flocculation of the yeast doesn't seem to have happened yet so I can't call this vigorous yet. Temp warmed to 166. New ice went in the bag to control the temp increase. Once I hit 168, a lot of ice will go in to main fermentation there.
60 hours in: after bringing it up to 68, I had a blowoff. Decided to take a gravity reading and the refractometer reads 1.018. Still fermenting so I'm happy where this is going - hopefully 1.014-5. After cleaning up and getting everything sorted, I come home 12 hours later to a smaller blowoff. Fermentation has subsided and doesn't seem like the blowoff will happen again. Tied down the lid and added 1 oz of Citra to experiment with adding hops at the end of fermentation (transform non-aromatic glycosides into aromatic terpenoids)(https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/3187-advanced-dry-hopping-techniques). Temp is holding steady at 66-67 degrees.
