Brew Day - 8/3

Slightly Confused Brewing Company

Girls Gone MIld (Mild Ale) - Hoggetowne Ale Works

First stab at all-grain brewing; used the newly constructed mash tun (see post by Hain)

Ingredients:
Mild or Maris Otter Malt
UK 55-65L Crystal Malt
Biscuit Malt
UK Chocolate Malt
Roasted Barley

Willamette Hops x 2 (leaf)

Safale S-04 yeast

Stats:
OG: 1.037 (estimated); 1.035 (measured)
FG: 1.017 (estimated)
ABV: 3.5%
IBU: 20
Color: 21 SRM

Brewing Steps:

• Heated just under 4 gallons of water to a strike temperature of approximately 165 degrees
• Added grains to mash ton
• Added water to mash tun by about 1/2 - 3/4 gallon at a time; poured last 1.5 gallons from brewpot straight into mash tun
• After all water added mash temperature approximately 158 degrees
• Mashed for 60 minutes; temperature maintained very well
• After 60 minutes recycled 3/4 gallons twice and then lautered into brew pot
• Heated about 4 gallons of sparge water to approximately 165/170 degrees and added to mash tun 
• Let sit for 15 minutes (temperature maintained at about 160/165, lid kept off), then lautered into brew pot (all of sparge water per instructions)
• Boiled for 60 minutes, adding hops according to schedule
• Rehydrated yeast using 100 mL of approximately 100 degree sanitized water
• Chilled with wort chiller and pre-chiller to < 80 degrees in about 18 minutes. Tub we put brewpot in had ice + water at the start but ice quickly melted (too much water in tub most likely)
• Aerated wort by transferring between brew pot and bucket 6 times
• Poured about 5 gallons of wort into glass carboy, cover added with airlock, transferred inside (about 1-1.5 gallons left over in brewpot). Then realized we forgot to pitch yeast (brewing company aptly named). Yeast added, carboy frothed around/shaken to disperse yeast. Cover and air-lock re-applied 
• Water temperature in tub about 75 degrees; added about 1.5 pounds of ice to bath, temperature dropped to about 55 degrees

• Instructions to ferment at 66-71 degrees for 10-14 days

Update (8/6/13)

Airlock vigorously bubbling after about 24-36 hours; slowed down between 36-48 hours; little activity after 48 hours

Tub maintained between about 60 degrees and 72 degrees using frozen water bottles

Plan to bottle on the weekend of 8/16

Update (8/20/13)

Cold crashed the fridge on Tuesday August 13th in preparation to bottle the Black IPA, which was also in the fermentation fridge. Therefore, this beer has been sitting at about 40 degrees for about 7 days. Luckily, the instructions said fermentation could be as short as 10 days and there did not appear to be any activity in the carboy immediately prior to cold crashing the fridge.
Kegged this beer today (8/20) by siphoning straight from the carboy into the keg; left a small amount of beer in the carboy to try to make sure we got as little yeast as possible in the keg.
Connected CO2 tank to keg prior to adding beer and added CO2 at 10-12 PSI for about 10 seconds. After beer added to keg, lid placed in keg and PSI increased to about 20 and added to keg to force the lid to seal well; the bail was then sealed onto the keg.
Keg placed in keezer, chilled down to 40, then the CO2 was attached at about 10 PSI to carbonate the beer.
Hopefully we can wait until the weekend to try it (4 days from now).

Forgot to take the FG...awesome.