About two weeks ago I won 3lbs of Cascade hops. 3lbs. Wtf am I gonna do with 3lbs?

IPAs I guess.

I’m more partial to Red IPA. So I dug out an old version of an amber and ramped in up a bit.

Also won some of this DRC that I been wanting to try. I guess keeps the deep caramel flavors but less of the prune/raisin. That would fit right in with this old amber.

Duck Creek IPA- 5 gallon

• 11lbs 2row
• 1.5lbs 60L
• .5lbs double roasted crystal 120
• 1oz Eureka @60
• 2oz cascade @15
• 2oz cascade @Flame out
• Mashed at 154
• Nottingham yeast

One of the things I just noticed about using this Mash and Boil, is that the smaller diameter boiler let’s the trub pile up pretty high.

Even after a whirlpool, a 20 minute stand to settle out, and leaving a 1/2 gallon behind under the valve, I still got 2″ of trub in the fermenter.

I will figure all that gunk into the next brew formula. I will probably never get used to that in these BiaB type systems.

I’ll probably have to start thinking about getting bigger fermenters if I wanna keep doing 5 gallon batches. That much extra trub is really going to be pushing it on volumes. The buckets should be just fine though.

The object of this beer is three fold. First. Get beer in the fridge for the yard working. Second. Get the kinks worked out of the Mash and Boil. Third. Try these Motueka hops.

A simple Blonde ale aught to cover all three.

• Work Beer 3 gallon 5%

• 5 lbs 2 row
• .5 lbs flaked oats
• .5 lbs 10L crystal
• .33 oz Montueka @ 60
• .66 Montueka @15
• American Ale yeast
• mashed 156

(Quick rant. First time using this brand of hops. Can’t believe how much leaves and sticks were in here. I won these,, but not sure I would purchase them after today.)

This is only the third batch on this system and its sorta been throwing me off a little. The temp swings on it are pretty severe. The heat wont kick on until it get -6 from target, and then it always over shoots by about +6. Thats, well, no good.

A couple of solutions that might help tighten it up.

First, but sadly not possible, is to adjust the endpoints on the controller. But its not adjustable. Well not yet anyway. You know someone is fed up with it and will figure a way to flash it or replace it.

Next, and probably the best bet,, just insulate the mutha so the temp dont drop in the first place. I already did a double wrap of reflectix and it certainly did help. But I think it also needs the old BiaB Blanket as well. (Yep, I know thats one sweet lookin blanket!)

Also, lets use this system like the BiaB that it really is. Full (or close to full) volumes. The more water in there, the less its likely to drop in temp. May take a hit in efficiency, but prolly not much.

The condensed tale of this brew day was quite different than the first three times on the M&B. More water and more insulation meant only a 2 degree drop in 30 min. A quick stir with the heat on, and shutting down manually when we got back to temp for another 30 minutes of mashing and I was quite happy with it.

(Any of you who also have this system and find that your mashbasket seals completely shut with grain and doesnt let the wort drip out when pulled up,, put a mash bag INSIDE the basket like you would a BiaB kettle. Works 1000x better)

Once I lifted the basket and got it into drain position, I cranked up the elements to head to boil and recirculated by hand pouring it back over the grains and mash bag until we hit 170. The wort was cloudy, but no grains or husks.

From there on out everything was groovin. I was within .002 points of all my numbers and hit all volumes dead nuts on.

For those keeping score,, this thing boils off .6 gallons an hour, and leaves .5 gallons behind under the valve.

I was indeed happy with this brew. Still need to work on routine and pretty up the wraps and such,, but I think I will be able to make this thing work the way I want. So.. tomorrow I think I will do a full sized Red IPA