I also moved my Skeeter Pee Plum to the secondary last weekend. I wanted to get my Pacman yeast back for the Jolly Christmas Manticore so I need to move the must off of the yeast cake and wash the yeast into jars. I am not sure how much this yeast will impact the flavour of my Christmas ale as it was not sitting in beer, but a lemon cider. The gravity reading was right at 1.000, making this around 5% ABV. I will probably throw this into my crappy PET beer bottles next or next next weekend.

Skeeter Pee Plum —

• 1KG Table Sugar
• 250g Dextrose
• 1 can Apple Juice concentrate
• 1 can Lemonade concentrate
• 250ml Umechuu (Japanese Plum Wine)
• 1 jar of Pacman yeast starter

OG is 1.040 which is a bit lighter then the last batch, but I think it should still be good. I kind of regret dumping the entire contents of the Pacman yeast because now I have none left to use for my next batch of beer. I also added the last cup of Ume Chuu, a Japanese plum wine into the batch. No one was drinking it and I find it far to sweet for my palette so I figured it was better used in this batch then thrown out.

I pitched a package of Windsor yeast onto it, without bothering to re-hydrating it first. Plan is for a 3 week primary and then straight into bottles for consumption!

Tranferring the cooled wort from the brew kettle to the fermentation bucket.

Last night I also took out my yeast starter and allowed it also to come to room temperature. I swirled the yeast around in the jar and dumped it into the fermentation bucket with cooled wort.

This is the starter from the yeast I harvested. It has nearly quintupled in size since I first made it!

Not much more I can do now but wait for the around 24 hours for the fermentation to kick off. Lots of sugar for the yeast to eat in this batch and they were definitely active when I from the starter at the time I poured them into the beer. I mashed at a low temperature (~150F) so I am hoping this will allow the beer to finish dry at around 1.010 or lower. If it does I should have a very strong, 10% ABV beer to enjoy on the day of my child’s birth!

Some of the things I am doing differently today -

• 90 minute single step BIAB mash (vs. 60 minutes) with a sparge
• Extended boil (usually 60 minute)
• Late extract addition to the boil (in the last 10 minutes I will add another 500g of DME)
• No chill cooling (overnight cooling of the wort)

The extended mash is done to try and get the best possible efficiency I can with the BIAB (Brew-in-a-bag) method. I managed 90% efficiency for my last all-grain and I am hoping I can do that again today. The extended boil is being done as many other home brewers swear it makes better beer, driving off unwanted flavours such as DMS. Also because I do not plan to chill my wort I need to make sure that absolutely any malign bacteria is killed. Additional reading has also led me to believe that late wort/extract additions in the boil process can also improve the overall flavour of the final product.

The No-Chill cooling of beer is something that originated in Australia, due to water usage restrictions they have in place. Cooling in an ice-bath or with a wort-chiller consumes tons of water and constant drought in that country forced brewers to device other methods to cool the wort when finished boiling. The No-Chill method is very simple: When the wort is done boiling remove it from the heat, put a clean lid on the pot and leave it overnight too cool to room temperature. This is a beautiful thing because I absolutely HATE chilling the wort at the end of the brewing session. My only real concerns are possible infections during the cooling and cleaning the brew kettle after it sat overnight (everything is going to be gunked on!).

Ingredients –

Grains/Extract/Adjucts

·         8.0 lbs Pilsner Malt

·         1.0 lbs Biscuit

·         1.0 lbs Rye Malt

·         750g Light DME + 250g late addition @ 10 min

·         1.5 lbs Belgian Candi Sugar

Herbs/Hops

·         1.5 oz Hallertauer @ 60min

·         1 oz Saaz @ 10min

Misc

·         ½ tsp Irish Moss

·         1 tsp Yeast Nutrient

·         1 cup of washed yeast

·         1 package Windsor Yeast, dry @ 3 days

Equipment

·         6.5 gallon kettle (big kettle)

·         2.0 gallon kettle  (small kettle)

·         Large Sauce Pan, Sieve (for Candi sugar)

·         Plastic Fermenter

·         Grain Bag (10lbs)

Procedure –

Pre-Mash

1)      Setup insulation for small brew kettle

2)      Pre-heat mash water in large brew kettle, 3.5 gallons (56 cups, 13.25 liters) to temperature of 165F

3)      Measure out sparge water, 2.25 gallons (56 cups, 8.5 litres) in small brew kettle

4)      Boil 2 litres of water in electric kettle (for mash, to raise temperature if needed)

Mash

5)      Place grain, in bag, into the mash kettle at appropriate temperature (~163F)

6)      Stir vigorously, take temperature and adjust as needed (use boiling water to raise temp or cold water to lower). Temperature should be between 147F-154F.

7)      Allow to sit for 90 minutes (was closer to 120 minutes… I went to the gym and grocery shopping, temperature stayed very constant) at constant mash temp ( ~148F)

8 )      Raise temperature to 160F for additional 20 minutes for mash out Did not do!

9)      (optional) Raise temperature of sparge water in large kettle to 170F

10)   Remove and drain grain. Pour wort into clean fermenter from large kettle and place grain back into the empty kettle

11)   Sparge by slowly pouring hot water over the grain, collecting the runnings into the fermenter. Rinse, lather and repeat until mash water is empty.

       12) Take gravity reading of wort and move into the large kettle Did not do!

Boil

13)   In sauce pan, place sieve in with water, melt down sugar, removing paper. Add 750g DME to the same mix and add to the main wort

14)   Bring wort to boil, add hops at appropriate times (60, 30, 10)

15)   Boil for 75 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, collecting and toss boil foam

16)   At 10 minutes at Irish Moss and late DME addition of 500g

17)   At flame out add yeast nutrient

18)   Take a small sample of wort, cool and measure gravity

19)   Cover wort  with sanitized lid and cool wort overnight (no-chill)

20)   Move to fermenter once at room temperature

21)   Pitch yeast from wash (will need to be drained, and have boiled/cooled water added to it)

Fermentation

22)   After 7-14 days move to secondary fermenter

23)   (optional) Pitch dry yeast and allow to age for 3-6 months before bottling

My cheap-o mash tun.

8lbs of pil, 1lbs of rye and 1lbs of biscuit

I managed to make it fit!