150 quart Marine cooler Mash Tun and first 4 brew day

Posted on April 21st, 2008 by John Little

I bought this 150 quart Marine cooler at Sam’s for about $67. Here it is pictured with 80+ lbs of grain for a Strong Scotch Ale/Scottish 90 parti-gyle.

And my 1st four brew day. It was tough, but alot of lessons were learned.

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Filed under: Brew Days, Mashing

Lascivious Lambic number 1 and 2

Posted on January 2nd, 2008 by John Little

Hey everyone.. Hoppy Brew Year! I hope everyone has made their resolutions to brew a bigger variety of better beer in 2008! If not, it’s not too late.
I ended 2007 and began 2008 brewing a turbid mash Lambic.
I brewed 12.5 gal on Monday, 12/31. It was an all day event. [...]

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Filed under: Fruit Lambic, Gueuze, Mashing, Straight Lambic

Disbarred Barleywine and Ponzi Scheme Pale Ale partigyle

Posted on July 24th, 2007 by John Little

I’ve decided to go through my previous brews and post recipe and session information, starting with the ones that have turned out really good. Also, I’m finally trying to come up with some names for the beers that fit the brewery name (also recently concocted). This is a little bit time consuming, so it will [...]

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Filed under: American Barleywine, American Pale Ale, Competitions, Mashing, Sparging

Batch Sparging

Posted on July 22nd, 2007 by John Little

Although there are many explanations of batch sparging available, Denny Conn’s batch sparging page is one of the most often cited. After I read it about a year ago, I began to alternate between batch sparging and fly sparing, but now I am a total convert. I like batch sparging much better, especially when I [...]

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Filed under: Mashing, Sparging

Turbid Mash for a Straight Unblended Lambic

Posted on July 8th, 2007 by John Little

One of my next brews is going to be a Straight Lambic, and I’ve read Wild Brews on the subject of Turbid Mashing about 10 times trying to understand. I’ve changed some of the infusion temperatures from the 212F recommended on page 141 of Wild Brews, because to infuse 20% or 30% of the total [...]

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Filed under: Books and Magazines, Mashing, Straight Lambic

Amount of Boiling Water needed to Raise Mash Temperature

Posted on July 7th, 2007 by John Little

It’s good to have some boiling water nearby when you mash in, so that if you’re off on your temperature (on the low side), you can quickly stir in some boiling water to get the mash temperature where it needs to be. 
W = weight of grain in lbs.
MT = mash thickness as qt/lb
C = current temperature
T [...]

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Filed under: Calculations, Mashing, Water