That's quite the hot water heater.

Heating this one to the boil now. The mash didn't want to drain, so I ended up cutting it off after draining about 4 gallons of wort and adding the sparge water to what was left in the bucket. I let it sit for a bit more than 10" at right about 170° and it drained with no problems at all.

So far, so good!

Decided to go with Willamette for my hops. Mine are only 4% AA, so I bumped up the bittering addition to 1.5 oz. Should put me right about on target.

All went well...yeast is pitched, fermentor is on the windowsil to (hopefully) stay in the appropriate temp range for the yeasties. If it gets too chilly, I'll give it a gentle rocking and try to warm it up a bit.

Congrats. Glad your brew day went well.

mmm sounds good!

Going to rack this one to a keg today. Had it soaking in water for the last few days, hit it with a quick PBW soak and rinse, and I'll sanitize it in a little while so I can rack it to the keg.

Temps fluctuated a fair bit on this, so I wouldn't be surprised if racking it to the keg wakes the lazy 1968 yeasties up, and gets them to chew through a bit more of the sugars...which is why I'll let this one sit at room temp for a bit before I put it in the kegerator and put it on co2.

But first, I need to sanitize a jar so I can harvest the yeast cake...which I'm not really looking forward to. This stuff forms trub like concrete!

So I tried to take a gravity reading while transferring this.

I failed, and in the process managed to break my thermometer/hydrometer (just a cheap petco version, so no major loss).

Of course, this means there was broken glass and steel shot in my beer. So I had to pour it through a sieve. Luckily, it was somewhere above 1.015, so I can only hope the yeasties will eat some of the extra 02 that was introduced.

I also did my best to scrub it with CO2, by hooking CO2 up to the bev in line and repeatedly venting the keg, in the hopes that the CO2 bubbling up through it would pull the o2 out as well.

I also added about 100 grams of wheat DME to it, in the hopes that the yeasties will eat the remaining o2 while eating the DME.

And now, I have the keg sitting in the living room, with the exhaust valve open, to allow the yeasties to eat up all the extra o2 and added/remaining sugars.

I'll leave it here (where it's about 75°) for the next few days, then I'll close up the exhaust valve and maybe leave it here for a bit before moving it to the kegerator to cool down and carb.

you did all you could there. that was good quick thinking, so hopefully the yeast don't mind doing a little more work for ya

This has been renamed Catastrophe Bitter...it's actually a pretty good Bitter, but between a bit higher efficiency than usual, and the DME addition, it has ventured into best bitter territory. Only I'm not calling this a best bitter, that's for sure.

It *does* have some slight oxidation notes, but luckily, it's the sherry variety, not stale cardboard flavor.

All things considered, this turned out remarkably well, and I plan to drink it fairly quickly, in case it oxidizes any further.

Oh, and with the DME addition, it has remained cloudy...probably due to the fact that there's a lot more yeast than normal in the keg, and the dip tube is sucking it all up off the bottom. I really should trim my dip tubes, but I *am* really lazy.