My 2nd brew on the Grainfather is the Hop Fiction recipe from DIYDog.
With 100g of Mosaic, Chinook and Amarillo hops this turned out quite expensive (~��ã31 altogether).
I was a bit quicker this time, about 5hrs 15mins from start to finish, but made a totally stupid mistake measuring pre-boil SG:
The pre-boil wort was really pale, almost like water, and straight away I thought I'd messed up the mash, or had used crappy grain or something. When I measured the pre-boil SG it was really low ~1.022, with mash efficiency way down at about 44%.
I thought about just chucking it out and re-doing the mash with fresh grain another day, so I wouldn't waste my expensive hops on such a weak brew.
But I remembered I had a spare Kg of medium DME in the cupboard, so I quickly chucked that into the boil to boost the final ABV a bit, and carried on with the brew.
Towards the end of the brew I noticed that my hydrometer was sitting a lot higher in the sample jar than when I measured the pre-boil SG. Have you spotted my stupid mistake yet? Yes. I forgot to adjust for temperature when I took the reading. The adjusted SG was 1.046, which was spot on, or maybe even a little high, with a mash efficiency of 85%.
So it looks like I've ended up with a stronger version of Hop Fiction. The extra DME has boosted the OG to 1.052 (expected 1.048); this is even after I added an extra 2L tap water over and above the target FV volume.
Oh well, you live and learn don't you. I reckon it'll still taste good. :)
With 100g of Mosaic, Chinook and Amarillo hops this turned out quite expensive (~��ã31 altogether).
I was a bit quicker this time, about 5hrs 15mins from start to finish, but made a totally stupid mistake measuring pre-boil SG:
The pre-boil wort was really pale, almost like water, and straight away I thought I'd messed up the mash, or had used crappy grain or something. When I measured the pre-boil SG it was really low ~1.022, with mash efficiency way down at about 44%.
I thought about just chucking it out and re-doing the mash with fresh grain another day, so I wouldn't waste my expensive hops on such a weak brew.
But I remembered I had a spare Kg of medium DME in the cupboard, so I quickly chucked that into the boil to boost the final ABV a bit, and carried on with the brew.
Towards the end of the brew I noticed that my hydrometer was sitting a lot higher in the sample jar than when I measured the pre-boil SG. Have you spotted my stupid mistake yet? Yes. I forgot to adjust for temperature when I took the reading. The adjusted SG was 1.046, which was spot on, or maybe even a little high, with a mash efficiency of 85%.
So it looks like I've ended up with a stronger version of Hop Fiction. The extra DME has boosted the OG to 1.052 (expected 1.048); this is even after I added an extra 2L tap water over and above the target FV volume.
Oh well, you live and learn don't you. I reckon it'll still taste good. :)
