Updates on the last two brews and general news.
Info: I did a full cleaning of the brewery last week and it looked great when we brewed on Saturday. My sister Jen also unveiled the Black and White version of the new RMB logo, it looks awesome! I can't wait to get the color and post it. She also showed a couple concepts of Angry Ogre vs Warrior, and Mostquito Trapped in Amber.
Brew #5: was the Mosquito Trapped in Amber was put into the keg for the BrewBQ this weekend. It weighed out at 1.011 grav giving it an alcohol of about 7.6%, another big one. I'm all about the big beers btw. It went over well for the guests at the BrewBQ. Still needs a little more carbonation though.
Brew#6: Bourbon Drunken Irishman went well despite the hosting duties I did (with thanks to Andy for cooking, and Pemmet and Danielle for some brewing help). At first there wasn't enough water to cover the massive grain bill, so I had to add more, and it ended up mashing at 158 deg F, which is higher than normal for me, but many other brewers use this temp.
There were two issues at hand, first the yeast starter didn't seem to take, I'm not sure if I got a bad yeast package or what but if it doesn't start fermenting by tonight I'll have to pickup another package tomorrow.
The other issue is the same continuing one of low yield. Ended up with 3.5 gallons again and I'm sure I started the boil with around 5.5 gallons. This makes me believe that I have to cover the boil and only remove the cover after adding hops since it boils up with the hops. I'll try a simple beer next time and see if I can get a good yield out of it. Since i already got a good gravity of 1.096 to the expected 1.095 I'm not going to add water and sugar and throw off this and the flavor. Instead I'll have a smaller batch and if it's good I'll do it again next time with a bigger yield.
Depending on how the yeast situation goes I'm planning to soak some oak chips in bourbon and throw them into the secondary. Not sure which bourbon to use yet, probably a Four Roses since they have a high rye bill and I have a bunch of their bourbons (and its delicious).
Next brew will probably be an Octoberfest that I can use to see if i can get a better yield. Date TBD.
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Regarding losing two gallons to boil-off:
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of burner are you using? I use a 55k BTU burner and I only typically boil off a gallon per hour. One thought is you could sparge with more water to collect more wort.