My eyes are bigger than my mash tun

BarbarianBrewer

BarbarianBrewer

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Remember when you were a kid and you put more food on your plate than you could possibly eat, your parents would say: "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach"? Well, the home brewer version may be "Your eyes are bigger than your mash tun"! I'm making a W00t Stout today and knew 29 pounds of grain was pushing the boundries of what my mash tun could hold, so I have no one to blame but myself.

This is strike water only. Mash temp is at protein rest of 122°F and I still need to add 3 gallons of boiling water to get it to 148°F! :eek: I think I'll be doing my first ever decoction mash to get it up to temp.

Full mash tun.jpg



This is the recipe: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/812691/-w00tstout-nb-
 
I think you could fit another 3 gallons in that cooler - maybe?
 
Minbari said:
Or a modified decoction. Drain, boil, add, drain boil, add.
Click to expand...

I kind of did that. Did back-to-back decoctions with about 1.5 gallons of mash each. It brought the temp up to 145F. So I should probably have pulled more mash for decoction. Anyway, since my target was 148F I felt 145F was close enough. I had a stuck mash and after a trickle for about 20 minutes, I took a pyrex measuring cup and scooped the wort that was above the grain bed. I added about 1/2 lb rice hulls and added sparge water. That brought temp up to 149Fso I let that sit before draining. Even with the rice hulls I had a stuck sparge as well. Because I used more water dealing with the stuck mash and sparge, I should have boiled longer to get down to intended post boil volume. But, with the light was fading fast I accepted the lower OG and started chilling just short of the intended 90 minute boil. A long and challenging brew day but, if it turns out, all will be forgotten. Well, not really. I made a few notes on what not to do next time!
 
BarbarianBrewer said:
Remember when you were a kid and you put more food on your plate than you could possibly eat, your parents would say: "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach"? Well, the home brewer version may be "Your eyes are bigger than your mash tun"! I'm making a W00t Stout today and knew 29 pounds of grain was pushing the boundries of what my mash tun could hold, so I have no one to blame but myself.

This is strike water only. Mash temp is at protein rest of 122°F and I still need to add 3 gallons of boiling water to get it to 148°F! :eek: I think I'll be doing my first ever decoction mash to get it up to temp.

View attachment 17846


This is the recipe: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/812691/-w00tstout-nb-
Click to expand...
That looks awesome!
What a full on beer can't wait to see the results!
 
The bad news is that I guess I should have boiled into the darkness and got down to my intended post-boil volume. I would have been close to my intended OG and I might have avoided the below. Then again, this is the first time I've pitched directly onto the yeast cake of a prior batch so who knows! The good news is that my fermentation chamber is a chest freezer so it nicely contains the massive overflow. Plus the airlock pushed up against the lid so it couldn't pop off. Not that that would have mattered, there is so much coming out of the fermenter, I doubt anything could have made it's way in. I also should not have set the chest freezer to the higher end of the yeast's range. I normally do this until I see activity, then drop it down. I do this to encourage the yeast to get going. But, when putting wort, especially a heavy wort, on top of a yeast cake, definitely should have set it at the bottom. Oh so many lessons learned on this one! :oops:

w00t stout overflow.jpg
 
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