The first Brew Day of 2020 went off without a hitch. Except for all of the hitches I had.
First, there was the waterin’ potatoes incident which cost me an hour. Then I had a helluva time getting the re-circulation going because I couldn’t get the pump primed. My pump/chiller stand is flawed. The pump should be the lowest thing in the system. It also needs to be rotated 90º clockwise, so the motor isn’t on the top and upside-down. I think with these changes, gravity will help out a lot with priming, and, if needed, I can use a large syringe to draw liquid into the system at the bleeder valve.
Putting the Foundry so high up proved to be a huge pain in the ass. It was very hard to add water and ingredients, and pulling the grain basket out almost cost me the whole batch. The basket wants to suck back into the wort about halfway out. You’re supposed to pull it straight out until the feet on the side clear the basket support ring, then rotate the basket so the feet sit on the ring for draining. But because of the way I had to lift, the feet caught on the ring and pulled it out of its slot, and it almost fell into the wort. I had to call my wife for help to get the ring back in place.
The Foundry itself did a good job. I wasn’t timing it, but I think I got to my strike temp (from about 70ºF to 165ºF) in less than an hour. After the mash, I was boiling in about 30 minutes. I’d scaled the recipe down to 4 gallons and did it no-sparge, so my starting volume was only 5.8 gallons. My guess is that it will take a little longer when I brew a full 5 gallons.
These are the notes I added to the BeerSmith recipe:
- Foundry can’t be so high up; too hard to get grain basket on ring insert—almost dropped ring into kettle (had to call Sarah for help)
- Pump needs to be below chiller and rotated 90º
counterclockwise, so bleed will be parallel to the ground above the pump. - Probably shouldn’t brew on the patio; shit from the balcony can fall into kettle
- Need a quick release on the valve on kettle
- Tubes need to be just long enough; too much beer lost in the lines.
- Use large syringe to prime beer line/pump; pull from bleed valve?
- Chiller got wort from 179 to 71 in about 5 minutes—AWESOME
- First time using Ss blow-off tube with growler (works great so far)
- Left easily a gallon of beer in the Foundry, but didn’t realize until I went to clean; I think the valve got clogged
- Missed the expected OG by 8 points; should have been 1.066, but only got 1.058—not sure why.
My adapted checklist worked for me; I didn’t mark it up too bad.
I did forget to take a gravity reading after the mash. I’m curious to know how far off that number was. As noted in my, er, notes above, I missed my target original gravity (OG) by 8 points. I’m a little surprised. I know that by not sparging, my efficiency goes down, but I adjusted for the difference with my grain bill and recirculated the wort continuously throughout the mash. Oh well, it’s looking like I made a session IPA, about 5.1% ABV. I’m not a big fan of session IPAs; I think they sorta taste like diet IPAs.
I’m really bummed that I left so much beer in the kettle. It just looked like trub, but, again, if the kettle had been lower, I may have noticed. I’m guessing that the valve got clogged.
Anyway, at the end of the day, I made beer, so hooray for that. The yeast seem to be doing their thang; there’s still a steady gurgle as they gobble up sugar, poop out alcohol, and CO2 is pushed from the fermenter. I should be ready to dry-hop in about 10 days, and then keg a few days after that.
I’m going to brew the same recipe again in the next day or 2, but 5 gallons this time. I should be able to avoid a lot of the issues I ran into (and likely run into brand new ones).
The Clone Ranger
4 Gallon / No-Sparge / :60 Boil
Anvil Foundry 10.5 All-In-One System
Estimated Brewhouse Efficiency: 68%
OG: 1.066
IBUs: 71.9
10# 4.2oz 2-Row
8.4oz Crystal 120
.8oz Chinook (.4 at :60, .4 at :10)
1.2oz Simcoe (.4 at :60, .4 at :10, .8 at steep/whirlpool)
.8oz Cascade (.8 at :05)
1.5oz Simcoe (dry-hop, 5 days)
1.5oz Cascade (dry-hop, 5 days)
White Labs WLP001 – California Ale