#5 English Oatmeal Stout

Since winter will be close to over by the time my next few brews are done, I figured I'd brew a sessionable stout for the remaining cold weather. I've also been planning on brewing a high gravity beer sometime next week, and so a nice big pitch of yeast from a previous batch should help fermentation.

For the stout and next week's high gravity brew, I chose to go with Wyeast's 1028 London Ale yeast. The next four beers I plan on after the London ales will be two Scottish ales (Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale) and two Biere de Gardes (Wyeast 3725 Biere De Garde Private Collection).

Since I had yet to brew another stout since my second extract batch about two and a half years ago, I figured it was time to try another. This recipe came from The Jamil Show once again, and should roughly approximate Samuel Smith's Oatmeal stout, which is a classic interpretation on the style. Other than using East Kent Goldings for the single hop addition, this recipe should be consistent with Jamil's original.

English Oatmeal Stout

Batch Volume (Gal): 6.00

Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): (collected 6.33 gallons of wort from sparge; topped up kettle with 1/2 gallon of water)

Total Grain (Lbs): 12.9

OG: 1.056     Anticipated FG: ~1.014     Anticipated ABV: ~5.5%

IBUs: 35.8

SRM: 34.2

Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%

Boil Duration: 65 min

Grain                                      (Lbs/oz.)              (%)

British 2-row Pale Malt             9.4                   72.9

Flaked Oats                                  1                      7.8

Chocolate Malt                          12 oz.                 5.8

Victory Malt                               12 oz.                 5.8

Crystal 80                                   8 oz.                  3.9

Roasted Barley                           8 oz.                  3.9

Hops                               (AA%)          (IBU)            (Oz.)          (Boil[min])

East Kent Goldings         35.8               4.5                  2                    60

Yeast

Wyeast 1028 London Ale (pitched from Activator packet)

Water

1 tsp Calcium Chloride (65 min)

1 tsp Calcium Sulfate (65 min)

1 tsp Irish Moss (5 min)

1/2 yeast nutrient (5 min)

Today was the first time I had an excuse to use my larger mashtun, a 10 gallon rubbermaid cooler I picked up earlier this fall. Once I started getting into higher gravity all grain batches, I realized unfortunately (often while in the process of mashing in!) that my 5 gallon cooler was not going to hold all the water and grain I had hoped it would. The new mashtun however should hold more than enough grain for high ABV beers and session beers (like the Oatmeal Stout) that will not comfortably fit in the smaller mashtun.

I'm glad the first beer I brewed with the larger mashtun was a grain bill that was relatively easy to transfer. After forgetting to add 1 tbl of the 5.2 pH stabilizer, and hitting a lower than desired mash temperature of 150 F (I had aimed for 154 F but ended up hitting 155 F for 45 minutes of the 60 minute mash) I came to find out that my mash was stuck when it was finally time to sparge the grains. I spent about 10 minutes poking and prodding into the mash tun through the spigot, trying to pull whatever buildup of grain had been blocking the flow. 

After that attempt failed, I was forced to dump all of the hot wort and grains into my boil kettle to see what the issue was with the false bottom. In my attempt to tighten the connections between all of the components of the false bottom, I had wrung the high temperature tubing running between my false bottom and the spigot into a tight knot. I was finally able to get a steady flow of wort out of the mashtun after unwinding the tubing and returning the mash to the mashtun.

Definitely more than a few problems today... On top of a few absentminded mistakes (forgetting to add the 5.2 stabilizer, forgetting to put a timer on after adding my hops to the boil) the issues with the new cooler were not very helpful. I'll have to figure out a way to keep a watertight seal in both the 5 gallon mashtun and the 10 gallon mashtun, two issues I've had for a while. I had not realized the extent to which the seal between the components loosens up when hot water is added to the coolers. I tighten these fixtures until I could not possibly tighten anymore, and yet after adding hot water to preheat the coolers or mashing in, I usually find a steady stream of liquid seeping from one of the many connections between the components. I'll also have to exchange the high temperature tubing I used today with a more sturdy high temp tubing that won't twist as well.

One positive that came out of the day however was that I saw the benefit of producing more wort than necessary for a 5 gallon batch. Rather than scaling the recipe down to 5 gallons, I chose to go with the recipe described in The Jamil Show episode on Oatmeal Stouts. The recipe was for 6 gallons of wort with the intention of leaving a 1/2 gallon in the kettle post-boil and another 1/2 gallon in the fermenter after fermentation, leaving a full 5 gallons of clean beer in the keg. Rather than tediously filtering wort away from the hop and protein trub after the boil, I only collected the wort that ran out of the spigot of my brew kettle. The spigot is located about an inch from the bottom of the kettle, and about 1/2 gallon of wort and trub was left behind after transferring the 5.5 gallons of clean wort to the fermenter. Not sure I'll make this a standard practice as it'll cost me a bit more when buying grain, but it sure made transferring the wort easier and will hopefully make the finished product taste better.

After this beer ferments through this next week at about 68 F, I plan on brewing up a high gravity beer in the traditional English Parti-gyle brewing technique, and I'll ferment using the yeast cake off of the Oatmeal Stout. Both my 5 gallon and 10 gallon mash tuns will be used to mash anywhere from 25 to the 30 pounds of grain needed for a high gravity beer. The high gravity ale I chose to brew will consist of the first runnings off of these two mash tuns, with a second more sessionable English IPA hopefully coming from the second runnings. It'll be an interesting experiment to see how difficult this technique can be and whether or not I can produce two separate beers in one brew session.

Building a Stir Plate / Beer Updates

After years of hearing and reading about the importance of pitching a sufficient amount of healthy yeast in order to allow for a clean fermentation, I've finally gotten around to building a stir plate in order to stir starters a few days prior to brewday.

Thanks to John Glidden, headbrewer and owner of Squam Brewery, I realized you can build a stirplate fairly easily from scratch. Using a few recycled computer parts and a few electronic pieces purchased from Radio Shack, I put my stirplate together over a few hours of tinkering.

I salvaged rare earth magnets from an old hard drive as well as a cooling fan from the same CPU. I mounted the fan into the bottom cover of the project box I purchased from Radio Shack using 2 1/2 inch 8/32 bolts, washers, and nuts. Since there is a nice finished aluminum cover for the bottom of the project box, I was able to mount the bolts into the plastic that will be covered by the finished aluminum piece.

I ordered the electronic hardware I needed from Radio Shack; a potentiometer to control the spin speed of the fan, a rocker switch to turn the stir plate on and off, and quick disconnects in order to avoid soldering. Using the wiring from the computer fan, it took very little time to wire it all together. Once I purchase a magnetic stir bar and a 2 L erlenmeyer flask, I'll mount the rare earth magnet on the fan in the correct place in order to ensure a consistent spin of the stir bar.

Using a starter to propagate yeast will  be a great way of producing a large amount of healthy, active yeast as opposed to starter packs or dry yeast packets of yeast that contain less than the optimal cell count of relatively inactive yeast. I'll be able to save a few bucks as well and buy yeast packets intended to be pitched and propagated in starters rather than packets that are pitched directly into wort.

The Belgian Dubbel is conditioning and will continue to condition close to cellar temperature at around 58 F for another week. I should get around to bottling it by next weekend, and I'll bottle in either 22 oz. bombers, or if I can find the correct corks and wire cages, I'll cork and cage the beer in 22 oz. Belgian beer bottles to withstand a high level of carbonation. 

The Alt built up another head of krausen after transferring into a corny keg and I'll let that ferment/condition for the next 5 weeks. 

The Kolsch has been going steady at 60 F for the past few days. I've never seen such a huge head of krausen on a fermenting beer before, so I hope it's a good sign of a clean, healthy fermentation. The Kolsch, like the Alt, should ferment for the next week and a half and then condition for at least a month in the keg.

#4 Kolsch

I had anticipated today being the day I would brew an English Oatmeal Stout but the yeast I had ordered (Wyeast's 1028 London Ale) I ordered a little too late. Instead I chose to go ahead and brew the Kolsch I had planned a while ago. 

Kolsch

Batch Volume (Gal): 5.00

Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 5.66

Total Grain (Lbs): 8.38

OG: 1.054     Anticipated FG: ~1.012     Anticipated ABV: ~5.5%

IBUs: 22.9

SRM: 3.4

Brewhouse Efficiency: 85%

Boil Duration: 65 min

Grain               (Lbs/oz.)       (%)

Pilsner                  7.5             89.5

Wheat Malt         7 oz.           5.2

Munich Malt       7 oz.           5.2

Hops                (AA%)        (IBU)         (Oz.)         (Boil [min])

Spalt                   3.9            16.9             0.9                  60

Hersbrucker      2.4             5.9               1                     30

Yeast

Wyeast 2565 German Kolsch (repitched from Alt yeast cake and krausen)

Water

1 tbl 5.2 pH stabilizer (in mash)

1 tsp Calcium Chloride (65 min)

3 tsp Calcium Sulfate (65 min)

1 tsp Irish Moss (10 min)

1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min)

I mashed in at 150 F , and the temperature dropped a degree to 149 F during the 60 minute mash. I collected about 5.13 gallons after sparging with 1.5 times the original strike water volume and came up short about 2 points of my targeted original gravity. 

I'll have to remember in the future that with beers made with a small grain bill, I'll have to plan on sparging with greater than 1.5 times the original strike water volume. I've come up short when collecting my targeted original gravity and targeted pre-boil volume a few times with the last few low gravity beer batches, and it would be nice to sparge with too much water (leaving sparge water in the mash) rather than letting the mash run dry and missing out on gravity points and/or pre-boil volume.

Fortunately after sparging with an additional 2 gallons of water at 170 F, I collected 5.66 gallons in pre-boil wort while at the same time exceeding my targeted original gravity. Now with two beers under my belt with the new grain mill, I'm starting to think that the mill is greatly improving my efficiency, by about 10 percentage points on average. I had to remeasure the gravity of my wort a few times before I was willing to believe I had collected so much sugar (after collecting about 2/3rds of a gallon less wort than I usually do during the sparge). It'll be interesting to see if my efficiency continues to be this high with future batches, possibly allowing me to save a few bucks by buying less grain.

The only problem I ran into today was the cloudiness of the wort as I collected from the mash in my boil kettle. I was concerned initially that it was unconverted starch, but after tasting the wort I don't think that could be the case. The recipe did include 5% wheat and is an extremely light beer. It's possible that the cloudiness was simply the result of protein from the wheat malt that was more visible in such a light colored wort. Hopefully the boil, the addition of irish moss, and filtration after many days of lagering will clear this beer and leave it looking bright and clear.

After only about an hour, the yeast already seem to be active. Fermentation isn't exactly vigorous yet, but to have such a short lag time is very encouraging. The fact that I repitched the Wyeast 2565 Kolsch Ale yeast from a batch of beer that was wrapping up fermentation may have a lot to do with how quickly this batch began fermenting. The majority of the yeast slurry that I took from the Alt was from the krausen on top of the beer, with very little of the yeast coming from the yeast cake at the bottom of the fermenter. This would likely indicate that that krausen was full of actively fermenting yeast whereas a yeast cake would be full of recently dormant yeast that would take some coaxing into fermenting a new batch of beer.

I transfered the Alt into a keg in order to leave the yeast behind for the Kolsch. Hopefully disrupting the beer will not result in any off flavors in the Alt. I'm somewhat confident that the Alt will be able to clean itself up however since the Wyeast 2565 Kolsch ale yeast is a poor floculator, and there was still plenty of yeast left in suspension when I transferred the Alt into the keg. After about a month of lagering for both the Alt and the Kolsch, I should be able to filter both kegs and be left with two sessionable German ales appropriate for spring drinking.

#3 Dusseldorfer Altbier

After brewing two Belgian ales the past two weekends, I started brewing the first of two German ales. I chose to start with a Dusseldorf Alt so I can grow a large colony of yeast to ferment a clean Kolsch either this weekend or next.

I went with a recipe from The Jamil Show on The Brewing Network. Unfortunately my local homebrew store didn't have the Vienna malt that made up 15 % of the grain bill, so I opted to bump up the Munich malt from 15 to 20 % and supplemented with Victory and Wheat malt to hopefully maintain some malt complexity in the final beer.

Dusseldorf Altbier


Batch Volume (Gal): 5.50
Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 6.33


Total Grain (Lbs): 9.63
OG: 1.053     Anticipated FG: ~1.014     Anticipated ABV: ~5.5%


IBUs: 42.4
SRM: 13.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 82%
Boil Duration: 90 min


Grain                        (Lbs/oz.)          (%)
Pisner                           6.0                62.3
Munich Malt                2.0                20.8
CaraMunich 45           0.5                 5.2
Victory Malt                 0.5                 5.2
Wheat Malt                  0.5                 5.2
Carafa Special              2 oz.              1.3


Hops                                   (AA%)     (IBU)     (Oz.)     (Boil [min])
Hallertauer Mittelfruh      3.8          16.7           1                60
Spalt                                   3.9          17.2           1                60
Hallertauer Mittelfruh       3.8          8.5            1               30


Yeast
Wyeast 2565 German Kolsch


Water
1 tsp Calcium Chloride (90 min)
2 tsp Calcium Sulfate (90 min)
1 tsp Irish Moss (10 min)
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min)

I received my Barley Crusher malt mill last week and was excited to get around to using it. My local homebrew shop would always grind my grain using a corn mill, which I've heard is less than ideal for barley malt, and it cost me to have it ground at the store. It'll be great buying grain in bulk, not worrying about the freshness of crushed grain, and crushing grain using something that was intended for barley malt.

I mashed this beer at 150 F (with 5.2 pH stabilizer) and held it for 60 minutes. I think I was a bit groggy this morning and used the wrong value when calculating the amount of strike water I needed to mash the grains. Instead of mashing at my usual water to grist ratio of 1.25 quarts per pound, I ended up mashing a bit thinner at 1.5 quarts per pound.

After mashing, I sparged as usual by raising the mash to 170F and collecting 6.33 gallons of runoff before measuring my final gravity. I wish I had measured the gravity as it approached 6.33 gallons though. Once I measured the gravity, I had to remeasure just to make sure I hadn't measured inaccurately the first time. My OG value was 16 points higher than I had aimed for. I had originally only needed 70% efficiency to hit my target OG of 1.050; I ended up with 82% efficiency. Since I planned on racking this beer to a 5 gallon keg, scaling this batch up to 6.5 gallons would not work. I chose to brew 5.5 gallons at a slightly higher OG with the expectation that I'd lose about half a gallon during racking and/or filtration of the fermented beer.

The Kolsch yeast had a relatively short lag time of only about 5-6 hours which I'm glad to see. I'll try and keep fermentation around 60 F to get a nice clean fermentation, although it may be tough for such a small pitch of yeast to ferment clean at 60 F, even if it is an ale yeast built to ferment cold. If the Alt doesn't ferment totally clean, I'll at least have a large yeast cake to pitch into the Kolsch, hopefully leaving me with a nice clean and crisp lawnmower beer.

Filtered Belgian Pale

Last night I got around to filtering the Belgian Pale Ale I brewed two weeks ago. The cartridge filters I have do a great job of separating the beer from the yeast. Since WLP 530 is such a poor flocculator, it really helped to put this beer through the filter. I use 5 and 1 micron filters and still have some haze to the beer; I'll either have to chill the beer more after boiling, add more irish moss during the boil, or start using a finer filter.

After filtering I cold crashed the beer down to about 38 F and force carbonated at about 35 psi. I haven't force carbonated so cold and with as much pressure before, but I think I'll have to carbonate this way in the future. The beer is just about fully carbonated after only a day and a half.

The Dubbel is just about finished with fermentation and I think I'll rack that into a secondary carboy mid-week for conditioning.

WLP 530 is at it again...

After pitching the yeast cake off of the Belgian Pale Ale, the WLP 530 Abbey Ale yeast began fermenting the Belgian Dubbel in about 3 hours. I was worried about the yeast driving fermentation too high and tried to put the fermenter in the coldest part of the basement last night. It kept the fermentation cold, but maybe a little too cold at around 62 F. I let the temp come up slowly to about 66 F where it's fermenting away now. I'll try and ramp up the temperature little by little over the next couple of days until reaching about 72 F.

It's crazy the amount of convection that goes on in a relatively strong beer with a good population of yeast. I'm hoping some of this yeast will still be viable after the Dubbel comes out of the secondary and into bottles; I'm thinking of brewing up a Biere de Garde with a partial sour mash.

#2 Belgian Dubbel

I've wanted to brew a Belgian Dubbel for a while now. Ever since getting into Belgian beer, I've loved the style and wanted to brew something just as malty yet drinkable. I took this recipe from the September 8th, 2008 episode of The Jamil Show on The Brewing Network. Seemed like a great recipe to start with. 

I think I've learned more in the past few months after listening to TBN shows than I have in my few years as a homebrewer. Brew Strong is one of the few sources where I can find answers to the most intricate, and geeky, questions I may have about brewing. I think the show will greatly contribute to my learning more about the biochemical side of brewing, the side I think I need the most help with.

I tweaked the recipe slightly to scale it from 6.5 to 5 gallons and lowered the amount of dark Belgian candi sugar to get the correct color of about 16 SRM. Strangely, the proportion of malt and sugars given on the podcast would produce a 6.5 gallon batch at 75% efficiency. Maybe that's in order to allow for any beer lost during transfer, but I figured I'd just scale it back to 5 gallons and if I lose a bit of beer, it'll mean less bottles when I bottle the beer. I'm too cheap to just leave beer in the fermenter or secondary.

Belgian Dubbel

Batch Volume (Gal): 5.00

Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 6.33

Total Grain (Lbs): 11.25 (14 oz. of which are sugars)

OG: 1.064     Anticipated FG: ~1.012     Anticipated ABV: ~6.9%

IBUs: 22.7

SRM: 16.4

Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%

Boil Duration: 90 min

Grain                         (Lbs/oz.)     (%)     (added to boil)

Pilsner                            8.5           75.6

Munich Malt                 0.75          6.7

Cane Sugar                    10 oz.        5.6             (15 min)

Aromatic Malt               6 oz.         3.3

CaraMunich 60             6 oz.         3.3

CaraAroma                    6 oz.         3.3

Candi Sugar (dark)       4 oz.         2.2            (15 min)

Hops                     (AA%)             (IBU)                (Oz.)             (Boil [min])

Styrian Goldings    4.6                  15.9                   0.75                     60

Czech Saaz             3.9                   3.9                    0.75                    30

Yeast

WLP 530 Abbey Ale Yeast (repitched from Belgian Pale Ale yeast cake)

Water

1 tsp Calcium Chloride (90 min)

1 tsp Calcium Sulfate (90 min)

1 tsp Irish Moss (10 min)

1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min)

I mashed this beer with 1 TBL of 5.2 and was able to hold my target mash temperature of 150 F for the entire 60 minutes of the mash. I mashed low to let this beer dry out and have a nice malty finish. 

The mash was going perfect until I unfortunately realized my hot liquor tank was leaking; that's what I get for using cheap PVC to try and create a tight seal between my ball lock valve and my cooler. With 30 minutes left in the mash, I chose to run down to the local hardware store to try and find parts that would hold my sparge water in my 10 gallon Rubbermaid cooler. I found them really quick with the help of the employee there, and rushed home to try and make it before the end of the 60 minute mash to mash out. I made it and brought the mash up to 170 F. Too bad the hardware I bought failed to hold any water and I had to resort to hand pouring my strike water into the top of the mash tun during the sparge. I guess not a huge issue, but one of those frustrations that seems to throw the entire day off.

Luckily the failing hot liquor tank didn't keep me from hitting a nice high sparge temp of 170 F during the sparge. After collection 6.33 gallons I hit 1.058, which with the sugars I added came out to my target OG of 1.064. I boiled for 90 minutes to drive off DMS since the base malt was all pilsner malt. The long boil gave me the chance to have the Ashton cigar I picked up at my local homebrew shop. The Fermentation Station is too much of a tease: cigars, brewing, and wine ingredients.

I decided to ferment the batch in my dad's 6 gallon wine carboy. It had been so long since I'd last used a carboy as a fermenter, I forgot to find the 5 gallon mark on the carboy. Not only was it a pain in the ass to transfer from the boil kettle into the narrow neck of the carboy, now I have no idea my final wort volume. Based on my boil off percentage, I think I have approximately 5 gallons in the fermenter. Hopefully this batch will turn out well in 6 weeks time and I'll forget how much of a pain in the ass it was to brew this beer!

I transferred the Belgian Pale Ale off of its yeast cake in order to pitch into the Dubbel. I'm glad the Belgian Pale Ale is one step closer to being chilled and carbonated in the kegerator; I have one half batch of beer left in bombers. Buster's Bitter is an ESB I brewed in honor of my grandfather. It turned out phenomenal. It finished a little high and the hops could be stronger to balance but at 7.5% ABV after it fermented with such a great yeast (Wyeast 1968 London ESB) there are few beers I'd rather have while it's cold outside.

After brewing Belgians for the past two weeks, I'm excited to start using the Wyeast 2565 Kolsch Ale yeast when I brew up a German Alt. I think it'll make for a great session ale during the mid-winter, and I'm looking to build up a good amount of yeast to ferment a clean and crisp Kolsch.

Spent Grain Bread / Fermentation Update

After brewing all day Saturday, I spent a good part of Sunday baking spent grain bread from the spent grains of the Belgian Pale Ale. With six cups of spent grain I was able to bake four loaves. It's too bad it's not easier to turn out this bread; too much of that spent grain ends up in the compost.

The Belgian Pale Ale's been fermenting for about two days now after an unexpectedly long lag time. I pitched the yeast a little cold (about 60 F) after chilling to that temperature after the boil, which could account for the long lag period. I have read about other brewers experiencing long lag times with WLP 530 after pitching directly from the vial as well. Fortunately the yeast have been fermenting vigorously since late sunday night at 70 F, and I'm expecting them to dry this beer out well and clean any byproducts by the end of the week.

High krausen glamour-shot

#1 Belgian Pale Ale

Since beginning to homebrew, I've been looking for an interesting way to both document and connect with the greater homebrewing community; a blog seemed like the most logical choice. Although I'm far from 'expert homebrewer' status after only two and a half years, I think I can offer a unique perspective of a homebrewer's knowledge in flux... I feel like I'm learning new things about brewing from multiple sources every day (not that even the most experienced brewers don't, but still...). Documentation of my learning process will aid me as I get more and more carried away with the hobby of homebrewing, and I hope that it can provide others with insight as well, whether you're a beginner troubleshooting your own brew or a seasoned brewer looking to reminisce and shake your head at the mistakes you used to make when brewing beer.

Double India Black Ale (Sublimely Self-Righteous clone)

For the next five weekends, the plan is to brew within Belgian and German style guidelines. I've been trying to get around to brewing both a Belgian Dubbel and a German Kolsch for a while now. Picked up Wyeast's 2565 Kolsch Ale yeast and I had yet to try White Labs, so chose to go with their WLP530 Abbey Ale yeast for the Belgians. After having great results with repitching yeast from previous batches I figured I'd stretch them out over the next few weeks.

To get a yeast cake large enough to ferment the Dubbel I have planned, I thought I'd start with a Belgian session beer. I adapted the recipe from The Naked Pint by Christina Perozzi & Hallie Beaune by swapping out some of the specialty malts and hops.

Evil Monk Belgian Pale Ale

Batch Volume (Gal): 5.00     

Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 6.33

Total Grain (Lbs): 9.00

OG: 1.048     Anticipated FG: ~1.008 - 1.012     Anticipated ABV: ~ 5%     

IBUs: 25.3

SRM: 7.1

Brewhouse Efficiency: 71%

Boil Duration: 75 min

Grain                   (Lbs)           (%)

Pilsner                    8               88.9

CaraFoam            0.25             2.8

CaraMunich         0.25             2.8

Aromatic Malt      0.25             2.8

Biscuit Malt          0.25             2.8

Hops                    (AA%)          (IBU)          (Oz.)          (Boil [min])

Styrian Goldings    4.6                17             0.75                  60

Czech Saaz            3.9                4.3            0.25                  45

Czech Saaz            3.9                2.4            0.25                  30

Styrian Goldings    4.6                1.5            0.25                  15

Czech Saaz            3.9                 0.0           0.50                   0

Yeast
WLP530 Abbey Ale Yeast (pitched directly from vial)


Water
1 tsp Calcium Chloride (75 min)
2 tsp Calcium Sulfate    (75 min)
1 tsp Irish Moss             (10 min)
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient      (10 min)

I mashed this beer using a single infusion, aiming for anything between 150 - 152 F. With 1 TBL of 5.2 pH buffer added to my strike water, I hit 152 F at the start of the mash which fell to 150 F at the end of 60 minutes. 

I sparged with the standard 1.5 times the amount of strike water used in the mash and yet ended up coming up short at the end of the sparge. I've come close in my past few brews, but to come one and a third gallons short of my typical pre-boil volume was a bit confusing. Must have lost more water than I had expected due to grain absorption. I ended up running a small batch sparge after the initial fly sparge to hit my 6.33 gallon pre-boil volume. Luckily still came at 71% efficiency; not the 75% I typically hit once I reach 6.33 gallons, but close enough.

After hitting a gravity of 1.048 (original target was 1.050) I added my CaCl and CaSO4 salts and started to heat the wort up to a boil. While boiling, I scraped off the thin layer of coagulated protein left on the top of the mash after my mini batch sparge. I saved 7 cups of spent grain that should make about 6 loaves of spent grain bread (if I can get myself to bake all of it). 

Of course it's with the first brew of a new blog that I make the absent-minded mistake to leave the plastic tubing of my immersion chiller too close to the legs of my propane burner, melting a sizable hole along the tube delivering water to the chiller. It was only after strike out, turning on the water to the chiller, and seeing a steady stream of water coming from the chiller tubing that I realized my stupid mistake. That'll be an interesting fix... Luckily I didn't have to rely solely on my chiller to cool my wort post-boil. What little snow we have here in NH was key in helping to chill the outside of the kettle.

All 5 gallons of the post-boil wort was chilled to around 60 F (usually chill to 70 F but trying to cut down on the protein haze). Aerated the wort with an aquarium pump for 30 minutes, pitched WLP 530 straight from the vial after a good shake, and currently waiting for signs of activity about 4 hours later. I've heard encouraging accounts of WLP 530, so I'm hoping it'll dry out this beer quickly and leave behind a nice big yeast cake ready to ferment next weekend's planned Dubbel and a great batch of Belgian Pale Ale.

After finishing up with the brew, it was a nice surprise to receive some great beer gifts. More and more I'm finding that the go-to gift for myself from family members is beer or something beer related. Definitely not complaining... Thanks to Aunt Lisa and Suzanne for the great beer trays, hilarious beer t-shirt, and gift-certificate to Barb's Beer Emporium in Concord, NH!