This is another one of the beer kits I get monthly. I try and just brew them when they get to me. Last night as I normally do, I started to gather my water and milled up my grains. I wasn’t able to get all the water I needed last night before bed, so when I woke up, pulled the rest of the water I needed, added in the salts and proceed to setup my Anvil to 154F(67.7C) and power to 100%. Left that to go food shopping and when I returned the water was at temperature. Added in the grains and started in on the mashing process. With about 30 minutes left in the mash I shut down the pump and gave the grain bed a good stir and turned pump back on to finish out the mash. With about 10 minutes left int he mashing stage, I turned the temperature up to 168F(75.5C) to mash out.

after sitting at 168F(75.5C) for a few minutes I pulled the grain bag and started to drain the wort out and turned the Anvil up to 212F(100C) while draining. Washed up the pump, hoses and lids while it was draining. I try and keep up with the cleaning so I don’t have a big pile 8). After a while I tilted the grain basket, but didn’t squeeze the bag as I normally do. Reason in my head is, with the darker grains I notice darker parts form on the top of my home made filter screen. I don’t want to push that grain flavor out. Not sure if true but that is what I’m thinking, may have to test that some time. After draining cleaned up that bag and basket and at about 200F(93C) I pulled the hot break off the to, my typical 2 cups worth. Pulled a wort sample and came in at 1.038 SG.

Once it hit a boil, added in the 2 oz of East Kent Goldings(EKG) and started the boil timer. Not much to do with this brew in the boil stage. At about 15 minutes left in the boil I added in the wort chiller and with 10 minutes left added in the Irish moss and yeast nutrient and waited for the 60 minute timer to go off. Pulled a gravity sample of 1.040SG. Quickly started to chill down the wort and had to stop as I had a slight leak in the chiller lines. Shut off water, fixed up leak and started to chill down again. Got it down to 73F(21C) and transferred over to the Anvil bucket. While transferring I had the air pump going trying to add as much O2 as I can before pitching the yeast at. After pitching yeast I added a few ice packs to the Anvil bucket to chill it down a little more before the yeast activity starts up.