ESB

Last week I brewed a Northern Brewer ESB recipe.

The recipe was:

  • 9 lbs Crisp Maris Otter Malt
  • 1 lb Simpsons Crystal
  • 2 oz Williamette Hops (Flavoring) (60 mins)
  • 1 oz Kent Goldings Hops (Bittering) (15 mins)
  • 1 oz Kent Goldings Hops (Aroma) (5 mins)
  • Wyeast #1968 London ESB yeast

Procedure

  • Saccharification at 153 F for 60 mins.
  • Mash out at 170 for 10 mins.

I had decided to double the amount of yeast (2 packs instead of 1) and had only received 1 oz of the Goldings!

Notes

I was particularly excited because I was going to try out “The Therminator” from Blichmann.  That turned out well, but was more involved than I’d expected (see Gear Reviews).

Anyhow, I got a late start, due to the additional prep work to ensure that the Therminator was ready to go.  I undershot the mash-in temp by a few degrees, but was able to get to temp with the addition of just a little additional water.  I probably wound up adding 4 gallons of water instead of the 3.33 recommended by the “1quart per pound of grain” rule.  An hour later I started adding boiling water in order to get the mash to the mash-out temp of 170F.  I had to add close to 3 more gallons at boiling to do this, so wound up with almost 8 gallons of mash!

I wound up with a stuck run-off a few times, but it recovered pretty quickly.  At the end of the sparging I had about 8 gallons of wort — way too much!

Tried to check for starch conversion, got a white plate, put some of the run-off from the mash on it, added a drop of BTF Iodophor, waited for it to magically disappear.  I got very little reaction at all!  Eventually, the BTF Iodophor vanished in the mash, but seemed to take quite awhile.  I don’t know if this is indicative of poor starch conversion or not.

Also tried to check the pH of the run-off (again, probably later than it should have been).  pH of Run-off was around 5.1.  I think this was near the end of the run-off.

So, anyhow, I set about boiling 8 gals of wort down to around 5.  Again, I was grateful for the awesome boiling capabilities of my Bayou Classic.  I had to be careful initially not to boil everything over — this involved turning off the gas once as a preventative measure.  Eventually the wort settled down and I could really crank up the heat.  At the end of the 1 hour boil I was down to somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.5 gallons — perfect after racking to primary and leaving trub behind.

Of course at this step in the process i finally got to try out the therminator.  Cleaning issues aside, this chiller rocks!  literally 5 minutes later my previously boiling hot wort was in primary, at a nice, responsible 68 degrees.

I checked OG — 1.042?!  Seemed low, but i attributed that to the temp being somewhere closer to 70 than it should have been.