Nice strong sweet hop aroma. Nice hop flavor that doesn’t have a harsh bite. Full hop flavor and maltiness, that gives way to a robust caramel malt flavor. This slowly fades and is replaced by a broad hop flavor that lingers.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
Dank hop aroma. Initial taste is hoppy in what I guess is “dank”. Not overly bitter, but lots of dank hop flavor that is quite intense. Not much aftertaste, which is impressive with as much hop flavor in the first taste. Quite flavorful. The ABV of 5.7% let’s you focus on the hop taste without being overwhelmed with maltiness.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
Strong sweet aroma. Taste is smooth with no real hop bite. Flavor comes through of some muted caramel malts, then leaves you with some residual hop flavors. Overall very easy drinking.
4 out of 5 stars.
Fresh smell of slightly fruity hops. Taste is clean and crisp with hop flavor not overly bitter or sweet. Can taste slightly sweet, drying yeast flavor. Finishes very dry with a mild malt sweetness and hop bitterness lingering in the background.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
Dark roast malt aroma. Smooth initial taste with a sharp afterbite of malt darkness that’s a mix of dark chocolate and almost coffee (but not really ’cause I don’t like coffee). There is a strong hop flavor that then comes in, blended in with the malt darkness, and the whole thing finished very cleanly and dry. No real lingering aftertaste other than a mild smooth black malt flavor.
5 out of 5 stars.
Bright fruity hop aroma. Sweet taste that seems full of coriander. No hop bitterness, no lingering hop taste. Very dry at the end. Tastes like it was fermented with Belgian yeast (not a fan myself).
3.5 out of 5 stars.
Clean, fresh aroma of hops with a bit if make sweetness. Crisp taste of hops which is immediately replaced with a caramel malt sweetness. Finishes evenly with a balance of malt sweetness and hops. Very clean, evenly balanced beer.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
Dark malt and hop sweetness aroma blended together. Clear dark malt taste with a bit of hop fruitiness buried in the background. Aftertaste is one of clean mild dark malt fading slowly. A lot of flavor but not a lot of bite on anything.
4 out of 5 stars
Sweet aroma of fresh hops. Slight hop bite that’s quickly followed by a mouthful of great floral/fruity hops. Very little aftertaste other than a lingering hop bitterness in the background and clean malt sweetness in the foreground.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
Since moving from my single-vessel eBIAB set-up to a 2-vessel system (one kettle is the mash tun, the other is my boil/heating kettle), I couldn’t hit my predicted OG. So I set out to do some experiments to determine how to improve my efficiency. None of these changes were anything I came up with on my own, just a collection of actions I read from others. I just wanted data to quantify the impact on my set-up. And I wanted to study the different processes with an eye on overall brew time.
EXPERIMENT SET-UP
7 lbs 2-row
1 lb Crystal 40L
0.5 lb White wheat
Mash @ 1.4 qt/lb for 60 minutes @ 150F
Water + brewing salts + acid added to 5.6 pH
Sparge water @ 168F
Target pre-boil volume 7.5 gallons
BASELINE RUN
My base process since going to the 2-vessel system was to do a 1.4 qt/lb mash in my Mash Tun (MT), and then transfer in all of my sparge water that was heating my Boil Kettle (BK) on top of the mash. I would then drain water off the mash over a 20 minute period back into the BK. I crush my own grain, with a gap setting of 34 mil.
After mash was complete, it took me 20 minutes to collect the 7.5 gallons of wort into my BK. Conversion efficiency was calculated at 70.4%
RUN #2 (ADD SINGLE SPARGE STEP)
After the 1 hour mash, I’d run off all the wort in the MT into the BK. Then I’d fill the MT with the full sparge water volume, stir up the grains, then vourlaf until things became clear. After that, I’d transfer to the BK until I collected the 7.5 gallons of pre-boil wort.
It took me 23 minutes to collect the pre-boil volume. Conversion efficiency increased to 75.3%.
RUN#3 (SINGLE SPARGE WITH TIGHTER CRUSH)
Same process as Run#2, except this time I tightened the gap on my rollers down from 0.034″ to 0.026″.
For the same 23 minutes, conversion efficiency increased to 82.7%.
RUN#4 (20-MINUTE FLY SPARGE)
Same process as Run#3 with the 0.026″ crush, but instead of the single batch sparge, I did a 20-minute continuous fly sparge.
For an extra 5 minutes (28 minutes after the mash was done), conversion efficiency increased slightly to 83.9%.
