I made 10 gallons of a simple ESB today, and it turned out fine. The ingredients came from Austin Homebrew Supply.

Fermentables

• 17 lbs Maris Otter Pale
• 1.5 lbs Crystal 60L

OG 10.75° Plato

Hops

• 2 oz 7.7% AA Brewer’s Gold (60 mins)
• 2 ox 4.5% AA Yakima Goldings (15 mins)

Est 41.8 IBU

White Labs WLP002 English Ale yeast

What went well:

• Brewday was quite smooth. I now have a great grasp of how my equipment works together and how to fit brewday tasks into the downtime between hop additions and mash stirrings.
• I verified that water loss in my mash tun is acceptably small — less than half a gallon. I wondered about losses here because my manifold is not sweated together meaning that suction could be lost before collecting all the sweet wort.
• I got about 65% efficiency out of my system, which is better than usual. I did a little better on the SG than suggested by Austin Homebrew.
• The hand-drill paint stirrer is just awesome for aerating wort.

Concerns include:

• The pitchable tube spent a day in the Texas heat because UPS doesn’t knock very loud. It smelled a little funky when I opened it, but the starter was better.
• I did not chill down to an ideal temperature before pitching. Threw the yeast into about 95° F wort. The fermenter is in a nice cool room now and I think the wort is cooler than last time.

For my readers looking for an update on the duck-in cooler, I made little progress since the last post. Too much weekend traveling. After the Longshot Competition judging this weekend, though, I will have time to finish it.

–Dean