I kind of messed up my mash temperatures initially, but I think I worked it out in the end because I caught my mistake early.
I am the only person in the house that enjoys the smell of this.
Cascadian Ale
Ingredients –
Grains
- 3.0 lbs Pale Malt 2-Row
- 1.0 lbs Munich
- 1.0 lbs Crystal 120L
- 1.0 lbs Biscuit Malt
- 0.5lbs Dextrose
Hops
- 0.5 oz Columbus @ 60min
- 0.5 oz Falconer’s Flight @ 50min
- 0.5 oz Cascade @ 40min
- 0.5 oz Columbus @ 30min
- 0.5 oz Falconer’s Flight @ 20min
- 0.5 oz Cascade @ 10 min
Misc
- tsp Irish Moss
- tsp Yeast Nutrient
- 1 package Nottingham Yeast, rehydrated in ½ cup warm water
Equipment
- 6.5 gallon kettle (big kettle)
- 2.0 gallon kettle (small kettle)
- Plastic Fermenter
- Grain Bag (10lbs)
Procedure –
Pre-Mash
1) Setup insulation for small brew kettle
2) Pre-heat mash water in small brew kettle, 1.5 gallons (24 cups + 2 cups for loss) to temperature of 162F
3) Measure out sparge water, 4 gallons (64 cups, 15 litres + 4 cups, 1.0 litres for loss) in large 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 150F-155F.
7) Allow to sit for 60 minutes at constant mash temp ( ~150F) (I messed up here and took the wrong reading, lowered it down to 120F, raised it back to 160F over the period of 10 minutes and finally allowed it to rest at 152F for 60 minutes)
8) Raise temperature to 165F for last 20 minutes for mash out (Did not do a mashout, because of the lost time during the temperature mess up)
9) Raise temperature of sparge water in large kettle to 175F
10) Remove and drain grain. Pour wort into clean fermenter from small 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 (forgot to do this)
Boil
13) Bring wort to boil, add hops at appropriate times
14) Boil for 60 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, collecting and tossing boil foam
15) At flame out add yeast nutrient, rehydrate yeast (rehydrated my yeast using 2 tablespoons of dextrose, 2 Mutton’s Carb-tabs and one cup of water)
16) Cool in water/ice bath to 27C
17) Move to fermenter, take gravity reading
18) Pitch yeast
Original Gravity was, surprisingly enough, 1.046-1.048. That is nearly 10 points higher then I was predicting (1.038). That means my efficiency, even with the screw up in the beginning was nearly 90%. This was hands down my best All-Grain attempt though I am not sure how I managed such a good efficiency. If this bad boy ferments out properly it should be around 5% ABV.
Total time to complete this beer was 4.5 hours from start to finish. Total cost was around $30.00.