Brew Day - Fuego Del Diablo

Another blustery day outside and another brew session under my belt.  Everything went great except the boil over.  Always, and I mean always, watch that brew pot until you begin your boil!  I was trying to do too many things at one time, took my eye off of it for about five minutes, and noticed sticky wort coming under the garage door. Yikes!  I lost about 1/2 gallon to this mess.  No worries though, everything cleans up nicely with a hose. 

I hit my OG a little high at 1.069 instead of 1.067 but that's close enough for government work!  ;-) 
The hydrometer sample tasted wonderful!  The additional 10 IBUs at 60 minutes really balanced out this beer.  I can't wait to taste it in 3 weeks!

Now, on to the pictures!














This is the new brew house setup.   The burner on the left is new(er) and is used to head the Hot Liquor Tank holding the strike water.  It's more powerful than the old burner on the right and I had to turn it down a tad after it heated the keg on top of it bright red/yellow!  And, yes, I'm still using the dog kennel to hold the Mashtun, it's just the perfect height.  I also kept the water filter close to the HLT in order to refill after pouring the initial strike water into the mashtun.  This helped because I didn't have to move water from the boil pot to the HLT.  The less lifting I have to do the better!














With two burners I'm now able to drain the mashtun directly into the boil pot.  Again, no lifting heavy buckets!














The boil over mess.....  :-(














The end of the boil with the wort chiller sanitizing in the pot.  I'd read on the Morebeer Forums that if you turn down pressure of the water going into the chiller that the wort will cool down faster.  I tried it and it worked great.  The water goes slower through the copper giving it time to allow the heat  transfer to take place.  Cool water in, hot water out, cool wort in the process.

Everything is in the fermentor and cooling down to 67 degrees.  I'll pitch the 2,000 ml yeast starter of Wyeast 1056 American Ale tomorrow morning.

Cheers!

Fuego Del Diablo

My, oh my, how the beer seems to disappear faster when the sun comes out! I just tapped my second keg of Mad Pig IPA and I'm almost completely out of Pale Ale and Amber Ale. I planned my next 3 brew sessions today and they'll happen over the next 9 weeks, the first of which will be this Friday. I'll also be reusing the yeast cake from this beer for the next two.

Fuego Del Diablo means The Devil's Fire and it's a slightly altered version of JZ's Evil Twin. All I'm doing to change it is to actually do a 90 minute boil and add 0.4 oz of Magnum hops at 60 minutes to up the IBUs by 10 points. This will be an evolving recipe where I try different ideas each time I brew it.

Here's the recipe:

Fuego Del Diablo
14-B American Amber/IPAish sort of thing
Author: Wade L. Williams

Size: 11 gal
Efficiency: 64.0%
Attenuation: 75.8%
Calories: 224.06 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.067
Terminal Gravity: 1.016
Color: 19.84
Alcohol: 6.7%
Bitterness: 52.7

Ingredients:
26.25 lb Pale Ale Malt
2.2 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
2.2 lb Munich Malt
1.1 lb Victory® Malt
1.1 lb Crystal 120
.6 lb Pale Chocolate

.4 oz Magnum (14.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
1 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 tsp Yeast Nutrient (AKA Fermax) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
2 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added dry to primary fermenter
2 oz Amarillo (8.5%) - added dry to primary fermenter

2 ea Wyeast 1056 American Ale in a 2,000 ml starter

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