Today working on a kit for a Brew-fest later this summer at camp. It is a Mudslide Chocolate Milk Stout. Started off by adding in 6.49 gallons of water 1/2 tsp of Gypsum and a shy under a tsp of Calcium Chloride to the water. Started to heat up and pulled my 1 gallon for sparging later

Just raked the top 3/4 of the grain bed after about 30 mins. Let rest for a few minutes and started the pump back up. Have some nice smells. This i went with a heavier than normal flow for me to see if I can gain some mash efficiency. I like to try different things to see if they help or hinder. 8) Will see soon. At the end of the mash I cranked the temp out to 168 and kept the flow going to mash out. Lets loosen those sugars up. 8)

Got 5.8 gallons of wort at 1.046 and gave me a mash efficiency in the almost 80% range. Brought to a boil and saved some spend grains for later. Added hops and than added wort chiller with 10 to go along with whirlflok and yeast nutrients. I almost forgot the Lactose but remembered with 5 min left in the boil and added it.

Chilled down quick and moved to fermentors when wort hit 65 degrees, pitched the yeast and into the fermentation chamber it goes set at 65 degrees.

UPDATE: Today 6-22-2020 just got home from a long weekend at camp and checked the gravity of the beer which came in at 1.012 which is what was expected and it shows signs of being complete. Dropped the temp of my fermentation chamber and will keg in a few days.

UPDATE: Well 6-23-2020 and didn’t ended up working after my normal job so came home and decided to keg this up and carbonate and let sit till Brewfest. Got 5 gallons into the keg. I keep missing grabbing a photo of what the beer looks like before I keg and after. Its some cool shots but I keep forgetting to get them, Probably because I rushing to complete my tasks while keeping the lid off for the min amount of time. Oh well Ill get them one of these times, 8)