Well finally got around to doing it! and had a very major issue! very stressful!
Firstly when I was about to do it I got Covid - great start so I delayed. Then I delayed further as we are prone to power cuts here and it started getting windy which usually brings on an outage. Then eventually...
I planned everything perfectly, got everything ready and off I went.... Using my brand new Brew Monk and the mash started bang on temp and all was going great - until the Brew Monk stopped working!
Still had power but the BM was dead - oh my god, just what I needed on my first attempt! I was using an extension lead but that was fine. Is there a fuse in the BM - god knows and couldn't get to it anyway if it's in the bottom. No fuse in the BM plug.
So major panic ensued and I decided it was the adapter I was using - totally my fault as the BM comes with a Euro plug but it has a very thick lead so didn't want to fiddle that into our small 13A plugs so I sourced a decent quality Euro to UK adapter, not from Ebay or the like so I assumed all would be OK - big lesson learned - that thing had packed up!
So I frantically found a plug and wired it to the BM and the thing came back into life. Problem was I had lost 15 -20 mins faffing about and the temp had dropped a lot, I also lost track of the timing so had no idea how long the mash had been going or how long was left to go - and where before the recirculating wort was sitting nicely just above the lid with the holes it wasn't anymore and attempts to speed up the flow did nothing so I assumed some holes/gaps had appeared in the grain bed and instead of filtering through was just running through a gap!
So what to do? well I continued and I was steaming as much as the boil. The rest of the process went fine, I decided to use a hop spider but what a bugger to clean up! I transferred to a no chill cube and bunged it in the fermenter this morning so time will tell.
Thing is, I hit the SG numbers perfectly - bang on in fact and it tasted lovely but I have no idea what damage was done by this problem. I didn't have any Iodine so couldn't tell if conversion had happened so I just let it go on longer than my estimated 60min mash.
I realise this is my fault but come on Brew Monk - £420+ you would think they could afford to put a UK plug on it!! Beware do not use this with an adapter and good luck fitting a UK plug to this very thick lead.
I will report back when it's done - it was a bloody hard and stressful day!! And I didn't realise how much steam this thing produces during the boil!
Dave
, gives you a good excuse to get number 2 planned.
"it's only beer!"
I hope you love your beer. Or learn loads! Or both!
