Batch number 3: Toronto Brewing Co.'s Brown Ale
Yield: 10x 355ml bottles
This was an odd one for me. Instead of a mash and sparge which splits the water up through the process, they included a giant muslin sock to steep the grains in a full 7 quarts off the get-go. This, while making cleanup incredibly easy. Did not give me the confidence the grains are being fully soaked as with a straight porridge style mash. It also, more importantly to me, took some of the fun out of it.
Getting 7 quarts of water up to temp on a cheap apartment electric stove is not the easiest process as well. Though once there did make it easier to maintain temperature through a combination of mass and the fact I learned to not crank the heat up so fast like I did with batch no. 1.
Now this one was only a day behind schedule on the bottling having brewed it several days after the dubbel. Now learning lessons again, this time I chose Founders IPA bottles. Slightly shorter and a bit wider in the neck, this may or may not be a problem. I found the capper did not entirely pull down over the bottle due to the wider neck so I'm not 100% confident that the seal is good. I may end up with a buggered batch but at this time it's hard to tell.
Also, maybe it's the style, sugar amount, yeast type, but there was no call for a blow off tube for a couple days as with the previous two batches. Straight to the bubbler in the top, and thankfully it's fine. No explosions or flooding! I like that part, I enjoy my explosions but prefer them to stay in video games.
Yield: 10x 355ml bottles
This was an odd one for me. Instead of a mash and sparge which splits the water up through the process, they included a giant muslin sock to steep the grains in a full 7 quarts off the get-go. This, while making cleanup incredibly easy. Did not give me the confidence the grains are being fully soaked as with a straight porridge style mash. It also, more importantly to me, took some of the fun out of it.
Getting 7 quarts of water up to temp on a cheap apartment electric stove is not the easiest process as well. Though once there did make it easier to maintain temperature through a combination of mass and the fact I learned to not crank the heat up so fast like I did with batch no. 1.
Now this one was only a day behind schedule on the bottling having brewed it several days after the dubbel. Now learning lessons again, this time I chose Founders IPA bottles. Slightly shorter and a bit wider in the neck, this may or may not be a problem. I found the capper did not entirely pull down over the bottle due to the wider neck so I'm not 100% confident that the seal is good. I may end up with a buggered batch but at this time it's hard to tell.
Also, maybe it's the style, sugar amount, yeast type, but there was no call for a blow off tube for a couple days as with the previous two batches. Straight to the bubbler in the top, and thankfully it's fine. No explosions or flooding! I like that part, I enjoy my explosions but prefer them to stay in video games.
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