English Mild (11a) Brewday

It was a very successful Saint Patricks Day weekend in the brewhouse.  Friday night I took my temperature controller apart and was able verify all the connections were intact.  I put it all back together and tested it out - worked fine!  So not sure what the problem was, but its fixed.  This allowed me to brew on Saturday.

Brewday was going great until it came time to sparge.  I was trying pick up the speed on my brewday and didn't let the grain rest as long as I should have after stirring before sparging.  Somehow some grain got caught in the 3/8" output of my ball valve and created my first ever stuck sparge!  After some choice words, I put on the thinking cap and grabbed my 3 gallon mash tun that I use for 2.5 gallon batches and started transfer the mash contents into that.  I soon realized that this cooler wasn't gonna hold everything.  So I then started to think again - grabbed my bottling bucket and an old hop/grain bag and poured the rest into this.  My sparging eventually turned it an adulterated brew-in-a-bag, but alas, I collected all 7.5 gallons of wort and brought it to a boil.

(My crush with my Barley Crusher set to Factory Settings)

I remind myself during all this that making wort is not as important as fermentation, so I wasn't worried.  I added my one, sixty minute, hop addition and started cleaning up the mess I had created from sparging.  I hit my desired OG spot on at 1.034.  Siphoned to my better bottle, hit it with O2 and pitched my yeast.  I set the temp conrtoller to hover around 67 degrees F.

I will try to post pictures later, but here is the recipe for now.  I plan on entering this into F.O.A.M's Battle of the Bubbles and BURPs Spirit of Free Beer.  Milds are flavorful low ABV session ales.  This is the type of beer that you can have a few pints on a weeknight and still be able to get everything else you need to get done.

Recipe -  Shegogue Brew - Darth Mild
Style: English Mild - 11a
Batch Size: 6 gallons
Efficiency: 70%
OG: 1.034
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.1%
Yeast: WLP002 - English Ale Yeast

Grist - Mashed at 152 for 60 mins
7lb - Crisp Pale Ale Malt
8oz - Crisp Crystal 77L
6oz - Crisp Crystal 120L
4oz - Crisp Pale Chocolate

Hops - EKG at 60 mins for 17 IBUs (I had 5.8% AA and use .75oz)