Considering how bad the BB turned out and that DiGennero is hosting a beer tasting party on the 23rd we decided that we must make up some beer.  (Brian is also disappointed in some of his recent efforts.  Seems that there is a rash of bad beer running thru the Grand Rapids branch of the Francis Street Brewing Society).

 

I decided that I would make my IIPA, which is a clone of the Great Lakes Brewing Co.’s Burning River IPA.

 

The batch was going great.  The grains were well cracked, the mash temp was right on, and I was ready with the sparge water just as the mash was done.  That is were the trouble was.  I was a bit distracted with Brian and Brian around and ended up sparging a bit to fast.  I didn’t run the mash tun dry but I got the 6.25 gallons into the boil kettel in less than 30 minutes (were is should take 45 minutes).  The thought is that this is generally too fast and that you miss out on some of the sugars.

 

The rest of the batch went just fine.  The boil was very vigorous, the chilling went great, and the transfer into the fermentor went just fine with plenty of splashing.  The yeast was pitched and all should go well.