A Brewday From 1134!!!

I honestly should have noticed something was up once I woke up this morning. I planned to get started weighing out and crushing malt at about 0700 but I did not wake up until about 0900. I figured, "Oh well. I had a busy week and I needed the rest. At least I am rested now."... boy, I seriously should have suspected something.



I went out to the store to pick up some Epsom Salt and Baking Soda along with food because I was going to play with my water chemistry on this batch but noticed once I got home I forgot all about the baking soda. Since I have just about every other brewing salt I did not need to run back to the store... Though, I need to get a better scale. I adjusted all my water and was preparing to crush my grain. No issues as of this point except that it was 1300!

When I was weighing it all out I noticed I was missing something very important... THE RYE MALT FOR MY RYE ESB!!! I swore I bought it. That was the main reason I went to the homebrew shop. I searched everywhere for it but just could not find it. This was originally supposed to be a double brewday so I had all the ingredients for a second batch, no issues. The next batch on my list was the Nut Brown Ale. I need figure out a name for this one but brewing will continue.



Now, just as I think things are finally back on track, I hit the perfect mash temp, perfect volume, think I'm going to be a little short at the finish, but that is an easy fix, the mash is finishing up and I go to drain my first runnings... My line out of the mashtun clogs... I am sitting here thinking, "How the hell can this thing clog?" I grab my spoon and start to stir... I then dig deep and what do I pull up? My damn hosebraid!



This sucked like hell because there was no way to get to the bottom of the mashtun without disrupting the grain bed or avoiding burning since I do not own any high speed Blichmann like gloves. I just decided the best thing to do was to thread the outside through my mash tun and use the spoon to try and lift it out of the mash. I then found the hose braid and reattached it. Pretty sucky. It was even so bad that I had to take apart my whole braid set up to remove the grain that got caught into the line. Though, from here on not much got in my way. Ran off the wort, got it into the kettle and avoided any boil overs. I probably used my most efficient chilling set up this time around as well... I really want a brewing sculpture.



I guess since my fermentation chamber/keezer build is not finished yet I can't really complain about fermentation temperature too much for this brew. It was a bit higher than I wanted but oh well. I made my decision about this thing. The good part of the day though was taking the other 5 Gallons of Summer Starlifter and putting it onto fruit! The chosen were Cherries, Strawberries, Apples, and Peaches. Cutting them up and sanitation were my only concerns with this part but meh. We will see how this all turns out. I'm just expecting tasty beer!



~Cheers!