Journal of Brewing

Oh yes, all-grain is possible inside my apartment.

So we doughed in a touch too hot. I mixed well and there were a few hot spots throughout the mash. I added some cold water to compensate. We ended up doing the rest around 151 for 70 minutes. Didn’t do a starch test, but I could taste that the sugars had been converted.

The phil’s sparge arm, in all it’s ghetto glory, was excellent. When we started using it I realized that I didn’t have a plug for the ends. With some quick thinking I shoved two dove chocolate wrappers in there and we were able to begin the sparge. I’ll have to get some real plugs for that thing.

The sparge lasted a good 45 minutes. We collected around 6.25 gallons of wort. We stopped sparging when we were at 2 plato.

I split the boil into two pots and put them on the large burners on my stove. Needless to say, I had a vigorous boil because I had to top up with around 1/2 gallon of water in the pot. Next time I will turn down the heat a touch.

I’m quite happy with the process. Fermentation is underway right now. Really looking forward to racking this and tasting it. It has a great color and good hoppy flavor. This one should be really good.