Chelmsford Pale Ale Brew Day

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7:47 PM – Crushing some specialty grains the old fashioned way – with a bag and a rolling pin.

8:38 PM – Heated water to 163 degrees to reach our strike temp of 152. Using 1.25 quarts of water to 1 pound of grain ratio (10.75 x 1.25 = 13.4375 quarts), we rounded up to 4 gallons just in case we need more hot water to make our strike temp.  We didn’t make the temp (145) so we add more water which made for a thinner mash. We did finally reach a strike temp of 150…which we were happy with.

We put boiling water into the tun to heat it up before the mash started.

11:17 PM – We batch sparged and it got stuck.  The mill they had at the homebrew shop may have grinded the malt a little too fine.  Stirring the bed and blowing back on the tube help us to collect enough wort.  23 minutes to go on the boil.

11:58 PM – The boil ended at 11:35 PM.  We have been chilling and chilling.  I have started the clean up and brought the yeast down.  I need to prepare the fermenter and we’ll be done.

Looks like the final gravity is 1.050.  Not bad at all.

1:04 AM – The brew session is done.  I have more photos and a few videos I need to post….but it will have to be tomorrow.

The brew session went well.   I’ll have a wrap up tomorrow (which is really later on today) to discuss what went right and what didn’t go so right.

Brew On!