Second All Grain Attempt

Even though we have not tried our first all grain recipe, the ESB, I decided it was best to start the summer beer recipe. Last night Nick and I brewed a German Hefeweizen. We used the same bucket system with blanket insulation. The mash temperature was a bit high and we had some trouble with temperature loss in the lauter tun, but the water coming out of the lauter tun became clear, which is an indication that the sugars have been extracted.

As was the case with the ESB, I had a lot of water loss through steam with the boiling. Even with 7-8 gallons of wort, I only had about four gallons after the boil. I added a gallon of tap water to the carboy to top out at five gallons.

We were able to use the new 35 quart (almost 9 gallon) brewpot. This was a great improvement over the 5 gallon pot. Although with the first boil we noticed an almost rustlike appearance to the pot. After boiling the wort and cleaning the pot, the coloration was gone, so I am not sure what happened.

After the slow fermentation with the White Labs yeast in the ESB, I switched to Wyeast. I am proud to report that the primary fermentation is very active with a lot of CO2 in less than 10 hours after the yeast was pitched. Check back for updates.