Beer 2012.02

Overview

• Style: Irish oatmeal draft stout (w/ anise)
• Codename: Hoary Hedgehog
• Brewmaster: Ryan Pierce
• Type: All-grain
• Initial Gravity: 1.044
• Final Gravity: 1.???
• ABV: ?%
• Brewed: 9/3/2012
• Kegged: ?/?/2012
• First served: ?/?/2012
• Last served: ?/?/2012

Brewing

Mash

Grain Bill:

• 6 lbs British 2-row pale malt
• 1 lbs flaked oats
• 1 lbs UK roasted barley

Mash Schedule:

• Type: Single step in insulated mash tun, no heating
• 2 gal 2 2/3 qt water at 170F
• Target temp: 150F (overshot to 157, reduced w/ cold water to 149.5)
• Start pH: 5.4
• Time: 90 mins
• End temp: 146F
• End pH: 5.3

Sparge

• 5 gal, target: 170F
• For some reason, the mash jammed. Suspect false bottom problem. Had to transfer mash into brew kettle, fix the false bottom, and transfer back before starting the sparge. Probably resulted in lost sugars, mash cooled more than it should.
• Overshot sparge water temp, started anyway at 178F. Mash was probably colder than usual due to the emergency transfer.

Boil

• 90 mins
• At 30 mins add 1 oz. Fuggle whole leaf hops (4.5% alpha, 4.5 AAUs)
• At 30 mins add 1 oz. anise seed in cloth sack. (This was Eric Stein's idea if it tastes bad, Ryan's idea if it tastes good. ;-)
• Some jet engines have less horsepower than the burner! Had one minor boil over. Also we reduced more volume than I was expecting through overly vigorous boiling.
• At 75 mins pitch 1 tsp Irish moss
• Chill to 78F, rack through sieve.
• After racking, gravity was 1.055, volume was 3.8 gallons. Added 1 gal distilled water. This gives us:
• Yield: 4.8 gal wort
• Initial gravity: 1.044 (computed)

Fermenting

• Primary ferment: Plastic tub
• Pitched Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale yeast. Mfg 7/23/2012, started 9/2/2012.
• Racked 9/26/12. Gravity: 1.012. Taste: Very good. Slight anise taste, nice bitter.