Doing a mini mash. Been a while since I did one of these, so getting the measurements is my big priority today.

How much mash water, how much sparge water, how much top kettle top up. I needs to know.

I see that Beersmith doesn’t know what the hell I’m doing. It seems to be calculating the LME into the mash. Well maybe not in the mash as much as in the sparge or something. Its trying to have me sparge out like 6 or so gallons thru the tun. I dont think that would be a good idea with only 2 lbs of grain.

I think I’ll do a normal 1.25 mash, fill the tun up for a mash out, pull it all, and refill. Once. Measure these amounts and top kettle to 4.25 gallons.


Started with 3 quarts of 165 water. Settles at 148. Lots more loss of heat than i thought.
Getting 2 gallons of water for mash out and sparge ready 165

And yep Stuck sparge. I just added a new CPVC manifold to the mini masher. Even when I was cutting the slots I was worried about it. Not much area to be cutting. The few slots get plugged and its over.

Took the nylon bag i had and dumped everything in that. Put the whole thing back into the masher and sparged as normal. worked great. Will probably do that from now on.

Well between first and second sparge we got 2.5 gallons total out. topped up the Kettle to 4.5 and fired it up.

Other than the stuck sparge I think everything seems kosher

Decided to FWH again. Sure makes the boil over happen. pretty tough to keep it down. but eventually settled. Dont know if it was the rye, the hops or what the hell.

Added the extract at 15 min along with another hop addition. More boil over attempts.

Got the last minute hops in. and started chilling.

Am letting it settle out for a bit. Will rack to fermenter and take a reading when I get it in the house.

We took over 3 gallons off. Not so much boil off in my little kettle. Even though she was a rolling pretty good.

Finished with an OG of .052
(ibrewmaster says expected og was .052, Beersmith says .060. Not sure who is right with the smaller boil off. More data needed)

Mini Mash

Getting ready to unleash the mini mash monster. It is functionally ready to brew now but am generally working on two goals.

1- portability. Want to be able to load up easily for roadtrip brewing.
2- electric. For indoor winter brewing.

Not so much worried about 2. I generally have no problems brewing outside in the winter, nor do I mind brewing indoors with current setup. But electric looks cool.

About all I need now for portability is a shorter burner and possibly a different chiller.
The burner I have now is very tall. And would a pain to move around. I need a second burner for my tiered system anyway so might as well factor in a shorter one.
The chiller I use now is made for 5 gallon or more batches. Yes I can and do use it for my smaller batches, but half of it sticks out of the wort. A smaller version would not only be more efficient but easier to transport.

Have been making a list of what I need. Although it looks like alot, most everything is either smaller versions of what I use at home, or easily fits inside something else for moving.

– burner and propane
– 5 gallon kettle
– water jug. Bring my own water and bring wort home
– mini mash tun
– 2 or 3 gallon pail for measuring, sparging, cleaning.
– chiller
– box for tools and ingredients. Coffee cans, thermometers, refracts, spoons, garbage bags, cleaners, starsan, sprayer.
(most likely fit in 5 gal bucket)

And optionally I could bring a smaller pot for the smaller pot, and my own hose with splitter.

That's it. So if there water for chilling, we can brew.
Hopefully I can stop tonight and look at burners. Then we can work on the tiered, and the portable.

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I started yesterday's brew day off as any other. Arranging equipment,
soaking stuff. But this time I got a brand new tun to use.
Before hand I'm trying to figure out how much different the strike
water needs to be to account for more volume. Most every calc I find
just goes by weight of the tun. And the new bigger tun is lighter than
the old smaller one, so I left it the same. Will adjust out later
after I see what it's gonna do.

So we are gonna brew up a blonde. Basically Centennial Blonde with 05
yeast instead of Notty.

Hit temps right on the money. But then everything starts falling apart
pretty quick. Hence the out of the ordinary notes here. In fact there
were no notes taken.

While mashing I decided to mess with the old shower faucet down
stairs. Changing it up to a brewing sink. But, I of course bust a
something and we have water flying everywhere.

Looks like an old joint came off or the solder cracked. Easy enough I
think. But it's not. So I'm fixing and mashing.
Then we come to sparge. Between the stuck sparge, the crushed braid
and the floating to the top braid, I was ready throw the whole works
out the door.
Finally got it sparged, but did not risk vourlof as much as I should.
Just wanted to get it out of there.

I have had my issues with braid before and this seals it. I and making
a hard tubed manifold. And I don't know if it was because of the
floating braid, but I left alot of liquid behind

Boil was pretty routine. I decided to FWH it with the 60 min hops.
Looks pretty good. Lots of break churning around.

I cooled it down to 75 and then a lid on it. Gonna let this settle out
before I move it to primary. Quick run to Fleet Farm for some copper
fittings to fix down stairs.

Took just 45 min to run. Got some great settling in the kettle.
Probably about an inch of gunk. This might help clear it as I forgot
to Irish Moss it again. (can't wait for my kettle valve)

But it's beer. Stuff goes wrong once in a while. But taking steps to
correct. Hopefully this follows the pattern. Usually when Issues
arise I get my best beers out of it.

We will see pretty quickly with this one.
OG 1.042

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