I got started before 6 AM and as it was dark and cold, I brewed in the garage.
The mash went pretty smoothly. I did over-shoot my strike water a bit, and had to cool down the mash to 152, but I got there quickly and the temperature remained constant for an hour and 20 minute mash. While waiting for the enzymes to do their magic, I played Wii Mario Kart, which is a pretty amusing game.
The sparge went without any issue too. I came right at 7.75 gallons of pre-boil wort with a gravity a few points higher than the recipe called for. Perfect.
The boil went as planned as well. My wife and kids wanted to go watch The Hobbit, and so I quickly cooled the wort to a safe temperature for my 5 gallon carboy and then let the carboy sit in cold water until we were back from the movie.
We really enjoyed the movie, by the way.
When we got home, the wort was in the low 60's, so I racked from the littler carboy into my 6 gallon fermentor. The gravity was a bit high, so I diluted with about half a gallon of water. I ended up with 5.5 gallons at 1.052.
As you may have seen in the recipe, I added White Labs' "Clarity-Ferm" to the wort, making this one of my gluten "free" beers. I suppose this violates the Reinheitsgebot, but I am sure my Gluten-sensitive beer drinker will appreciate this.
The sample was visually beautiful and tasted wonderful. The beer is now sitting in my basement and is about 60 degrees waiting for the yeast to start working its magic.
I do believe this beer will turn out simply awesome. Can't wait to give it a try.
I have now brewed all-grain batches in 13 of the 23 BJCP categories. This means there are 10 more to brew. Next up, I am planning on brewing 1D. Munich Helles. I already have that recipe on the website at Snowball's Chance (in) Helles. I will be sure to let you know how brewing that one goes.
Hoppy Brew Year, everyone.
I was right ... this beer turned out awesome. It even won 1st place in the Amber Hybrid category of the first round of the National Homebrew competition.
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