After listening to a podcast about Festbier I have decided to bring back an old recipe I had tried a few years ago and it turned out bad. I have learned a lot over the years and want to try my hand at it again. Picked up the ingredient from my local brew supply store, Beer and Wine Hobby. Collected the water the night before and also milled the grains. Added in the salts and setup the Anvil 6.5 so its all at temperature in the morning. Planning on doing a step mash with this one and also only doing a 1.5 batch.

@05:27 hit the mash temperature of 125F(51.6C) and added in my grains. Started the pump and timer @05:29. Going to sit at this temperature for 20 minutes. With about 30 seconds left in the first timer I pumped up the temperature to 145F(62.7C). Once it hits the temperature Ill start the timer. It hit 144F (62.2C) and started the timer. Hit the 145F(62.7C) @05:56. With about 20 minutes left in the 40 minute timer I stopped the pump and gave the grain bed a good stir and then continued the 40 minute mash. At the end of the 40 minute timer I turned the Anvil up to 158F(70C) for 20 minutes but left the timer running while it climbed up to temperature. At the end of the 20 minute timer I turned the Anvil up to 168F(75.5C) to mash out. Left the timer running on this as well for 10 minutes. Pulled the basket at the end and let the wort drain. @07:07 pulled the grain basket and let the wort drain. Also turned the Anvil up to 212F(100C) while draining off the wort. Cleaned up everything I could while the wort goes up to a boil. Pulled a wort sample of 1.037SG and about 4 gallons(15.14L) of wort.

@07:35 the boil started since this is a 90 minute boil I have about 30 minutes to get my first addition ready. Pulled the required hops and weighted out and added at the 60 minutes left in the boil. With 15 minutes left in the boil added in the hop addition and also tossed in the wort chiller and with 10 minutes left added in the Irish Moss and the yeast nutrients. At the end of the boil I pulled a wort sample to 1.047 SG and 3.25 Gallons (12.3L) of wort. @09:11 was down to 109F(42.7C) @09:15 down to 91F(32.7C). @09:20 was down to 75F(23.8C) and transferred over to my fermentor and then pitched the yeast. Had everything cleaned up b 09:30.

@18:06 on November 19th I had no activity still. and the tilt measurement really didn’t change, went up a point. So decided to pitch W-34/70. I had also raised the temperature to 60F(15.5C) to see if I can get activity and still nothing.

@15:30 on November 20 had great activity now. Also started to drop the temperature back down to 50F(10C).

@08:15 on November 30th I had decided to transfer to a keg as the gravity hasn’t moved in days and I have been slowly dropping the temperature to cold crash it. I decided to just put in a keg and add in some sugar to naturally carbonate this plug help keep the O2 out of the beer. I didn’t pull a sample for me but that is ok, Ill wait a few weeks to taste this one.