I've recently rebuilt my brewery into a 2 vessel kettle BIAB RIMS system. And even more recently rebuilt my controller so I could finally use it. So for it's inaugaral run I decided (completely sensibly IMO) to brew a beer that I've never brewed before.
Enter Belgian Golden (A Belgian Pale Ale). Which called for Pale Ale, Munich and Carapils. I didn't have the latter, or any of the suggested substitutes and I'm trying to use up some of my malts so the idea was to go with what I'd got. So instead of 400g of Carapils, I used 300g of Carared and an extra 100g of Munich. And instead of the 90g of East Kent Goldings, I used 90g of a 50/50 (almost) mix of Hallertau and Goldings (Because I didn't have enough Goldings on hand). Notice, good reader, the "errors" starting to accumulate. I worked out my water volume, loaded the brewery and fired it up. While the water heated up, I ground the grains (less finely than last time, which had gotten well and truely stuck), mixed in a generous handful of rice hulls and as I hit temperature, mashed in. After about 5 mins it was clear that there was still too much flour and that the mash was getting stuck. Flow rates were dropping and the controller (which doesn't yet have a view of the flow rate) was starting to push the temperature too high. I grabbed some more rice hulls, mixed them in and things seemed to settle down.
At this point I was feeling pretty good about things, except that I had decided to start this while the in-laws were visiting and they had taken the sprogs out for the afternoon... but now they were all back, and my attention was somewhat split. Still, I mashed out, turned off the pump so that the wort drained into the boil kettle, and started heating, all while maintaining a polite conversation with the in-laws. I sterilised a fermenting bucket and while empyting it back out, dropped it and broke the rim so had to sterilise another.
At some point I noticed the strong smell of boiling wort and walked to the shed to find a boil-over in progress. Sticky wort running down the side of the kettle and a small (not so small actually) puddle on the floor. I quickly turned down the heat to a simmer, decided that I'd not lost too much and started the timer. My hops additions went in fine. I finished the boil, cooled the wort and drained it into a fermenting bucket. And as I walked the bucket back to the house, I thought to myself that it seemed a little empty. I was expecting to get about 20L in the fermenter, but my 32L bucket looked to be at best 1/3rd full. No matter, I took my SG (I forgot to mesure pre-boil gravity) and noted that it was higher than my target (1.057 versus 1.053 targetted). No matter, struggle on anyway. I pitched my yeast and went to bed. The following day I cleaned up the brewery and collected the last of the wort that had drained out overnight. This seemed a little more bitter than expected. More so considering that it was unfermented wort. Taking into account that the boil-over seemed to have dumped several litres of wort on the floor of my shed, my hop additions were far too much as they were for the full recipe.
It's OK I think. I'll do a mini-mash, boil without the hops and add the resulting wort to the fermenter to dial down the bitterness. This time I drop the carared given the darkness of the existing beer (it's not a pale ale by any definition) and go with just Pale Ale and Munich. I grind by hand with the corn mill, mash in in a BIAB in a BOP and I get 1.047 pre-boil. After 75 minutes of the 90 minute boil I'm already at 1.060 so I stop and cool it down. Most of the gunk has collected so I use the auto-siphon to transfer the clear wort from my mini-mash into the fermenter. The auto-siphon has a bottling wand on the end of it with a spring valve. When transferring large quantities I tend to remove it to get a higher flow rate. I pull it off while holding the auto-siphon upright and manage to drop the spring and the valve into the fermenter. And there they will stay for the next 2 weeks until I rack it off for bottling!
Now I just need to see if the packet of Nottingham yeast I pitched is actually viable, because I've got no activity yet. A packet of US -05 is on standby.
And next time, I need to start in the morning and not try and do anything else at the same time. It remains to be seen how much beer I've actually got, and how drinkable it is. If it ferments to as dry as the recipe suggests, then it's already going to be stronger than planned. I'll find out in a few weeks.
The amazing thing is that I managed all this while stone-cold sober. Imagine the chaos I could sow if I'd decided to have a drink while I brewed!
