WOOT!!! 87% on 20 gallon mash of Moosedrool!

I just got done with my 20 gallon brew of Moose Drool and I got a whooping 87% efficiency out of my mash. I did 43 lbs of grain in a single mash at about 1.0 qts/lb on my mash, and I was figuring on only about 70% efficiencies. This is the first brew with the new Grain Mill and I was worried that with that much grain, I was going to have low efficiencies and, worse, possibly a stuck mash. I ground the grains all last night, and the crush was a LOT more than I'm use to (even after backing off the crush a lot and gapping the space more than stock). Well, I was worried about all that fine crush, but it turned out SPLENDID. As it was, we had to use 5 carboys to get all 21.5 gallons in. I did all 43 lbs at once in the mash, and then drained the 4.5 gallons of initial runnings (hit 1.113 SG on that) into one of the boil kettles, and then batch sparged about 13 more gallons (in 4.5 gallon increments), then fly sparged the last 6 gallons to hit my 25 gallons preboil volumes. Pumped the wort for a long time between the two boil kettles to equalize the gravities, and hit 1.053 (was shooting for 1.044). Well, boiled for 80 minutes, and ended up with about 21.5 gallons in the kettles at 1.061, for a grand total of 87% efficiency. I didn't stir the mash once after the initial dough in.

Thanks for all the help, Rob! We played cribbage, drank beer, and ate some brauts and chorizos cooked in chocolate oatmeal stout in a crockpot. It was a great time.

Pete's Wicked Ale

Just had my first couple glasses of Pete's Wicked Ale clone I brewed on Dec, 07 of last year. It is VERY tasty. A bit darker (mostly due to clarity) than the commercial version, but very good. Could use just a little more bittering hops, I think. I'm sure I'll brew this one again, but I'll have to see how the Moose Drool I'm planning to brew next turns out.

The Full Suspension is also ready, I'm just waiting for space in the fridge!!! Super Bowl weekend ought to take care of that problems. Grin.

New Keg Fridge

I finally hit the cooling lines on my Woods freezer that I was using as my keggerator while drilling some more holes for 2 more taps. Lost all the coolant and I'm not sure it is going to be fixable. I picked up a used refridgerator today for $75 and spent the day cleaning it, removing shelves, and taking the interior of the door off (so that all 4 kegs will fit in there). Drilled 4 new holes and mounted the splash grills and 4 taps. Got a 4 line manifold put inside on the back wall and plumbed out the back to the C02 tank. Also got a small shelf made for the back kegs (the back of most fridges is sloped, so, you have to build a square stand for the kegs to sit on in the back).







Now I'm just hoping I can find a way to repair my old freezer to use it as a temp controlled fermentation cabinet.

Oh, yeah, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Wicked Brew

Took the opportunity to invite some of the folks from the local Treasure Valley Brew club over to watch an all grain brew. Jack, Steve, and Cory all made it, and Cory brought some brauts that we crock-potted in some of my oatmeal stout for a couple hours and then ate them on buns with some hot honey mustard...mmmm.

Jason did a double batch. One AG and one extract. He got the extract/steeped batch of Full Suspension going first in the boil kettle and then started the mash tun and HLT cranking up to temp to do an AG clone of Pyramid Snowcap Ale. It was cold and really rained toward the end of the brew day...but any day brewing is a GOOD day!

Temp Controller for HLT Gas installed

I got the temp controller and the ASCO 1/2" solenoid valve installed in the system today. I'll have to do a burner test run and see how hot it gets. Had to rewire a lot of stuff and I removed the mis-matched old ASCO valve in the bypass line of the HLT and replaced it with a matched one and use that one for the gas valve, since it only has a very small 3/16" orifice for flow.

Rye IPA Label

I just got a label for the Rye IPA made up. Going to put it on tap this weekend.

Double Dog Brew Day!

After finishing two separate all grain brews yesterday, a 10 gallon Horsetooth Pale Ale and a 10 gallon repeat of the Fat Tire, I was beat. Jason Hoodenpyle also was over with his brew frame and made 10 gallons of AG Black Butte Porter. So, I ended up with 15 gallons of brew last night (and I racked the Rye IPA to keg and bottled 5 gallons of the B52). So, I didn't have three blow off tubes, and I just picked the brew with the lowest OG and the one that had the most head space and put an air lock on that one...heheh. Well, guess which one took off the fastest? The pictures below are last night on the left and 12 hours later on the right.






Jason also had some great ideas about printing up some labels for our brews to stick on our kegerators under the taps to tell what we had. I came up with the following ones, which I printed out and stuck on some cool business card refrigerator magnets from Walmart.