Rainy day brewing

Brewed: 090902 Por Favor

Today I made my first batch of a Vienna lager-type recipe as an ale that I hope turns out somewhat like Negra Modelo.

The batch came in with a higher OG than BeerSmith predicted based on the recipe (1.054 vs. 1.051). Evidently I managed to get 70% efficiency instead of the 65% I expected (and scaled the grain bill for). That may be due to a better crush than usual - I got the grain at Alabrew for this batch.

I executed the end game of this batch a little differently than I have on previous batches. At the end of the boil I used the immersion chiller to cool the wort down to below 80 F as usual. I transferred the wort to the primary carboy but I didn't immediately pitch the yeast. I put the carboy into the fermenter to cool a little more while the dry yeast was hydrating.

I used the Fermentis Safale US-05 yeast with this batch, as I did with the 090901 Gayle Bait. Having learned from 090901's blowout, I rigged a blow-off tube for this batch. I also used the 6.5 gallon glass carboy instead of a 6 gallon Better Bottle, which means I have a lot more head space available to take up the krausen. A side note: the blow-off tubing I have is not big enough to fit the opening of a Better Bottle, so I couldn't have done anything to prevent the Gayle Bait blowout in any event.

The challenge on the day was the rain. I had to rig a patio umbrella in the garage door opening to have a spot in which to brew. Luckily the rain never came down hard enough to saturate the umbrella and drip into the kettle.

RIP 090801 Geordie Boy

I floated the brown ale. There's no brown ale in the pipeline, demonstrating once again that Fork and Hay's supply chain planning is terrible. Looks like I might be coming up on the first time with three active fermentations underway - I can't possibly wait more than a day or so to get another brown going.