Sunday, March 30, 2008

First All Grain

6 lbs WYM Caramunich III

1 lb 120L Crystal Malt

½ lb MTN Black

½ lb WYM Smoked

1 lb of potatoes

3 tbs Peet's Sumatra Coffee


2 oz Northern Brewer

1 oz US Fuggles

British Ale Yeast


I chopped up the potatoes and put them in the water as it warmed up to steeping temperatures. All the malts (and potatoes) soaked with 2.5 gal of water at 155F for ~1 hr. Dumped into Lautertun, sparged with 3 gallons of water. Could not bring it to rapid boil on burner. Started with Fuggles at beginning of 30 minute boil. At 20 minutes into boil I put in 1 oz of Northern Brewer. At 29 minutes into boil, I put in the other oz of Northern Brewer. I pulled it off after the thirty minute boil, and threw in three table spoons of Peet's Sumatra coffee grounds. I let that sit for about five minutes while I got the wart chiller set up. I poured the wort into my old bottling bucket through a strainer. I connected the spiget of the bottling bucket to the wort chiller. As the wort ran through the chiller, it heated up the sink pretty quickly. I emptied all of the cold items in the freezer to try to keep the temperature down. I had to empty the sink a few times, and stop flow a few times to keep the temperature down. I even put the carboy my large stock pot and poured cold water over it to try to help keep the temperature down. I don't know the final pitching temperature. But it felt cool to the touch (guessing ~70F). I pitched the yeast, and threw the carboy in the closet.


OG: 1.025


I am concerned with the above specific gravity. I have not brewed a beer with such a low specific gravity. I am hoping that something happened during the measurement that has caused the value to be wrong, but I can't really think of anything.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

why potatoes?

Vandal Chris said...

I didn't have enough grains for the specific gravity I wanted, and I had a lot of potatoes lying around. I thought it would be a great way to raise the alcohol without modifying the flavor. What little I could find about it said that it shouldn't effect the flavor too much.