Competition Winner IPA

[Chris Craig]

Recipe:

Wouldn't you like to know 

Stay tuned

[DandyMason]

What a tease...

[jamie_savoie]

Brewed mine last night. I named it IPAFTW (ipa for the win)   

[Al-Loves-Wine]

Everybody must have been brewing last night, I made mine as well. Recipe I made months ago, figured might as well make it for the competition. Its gonna be tasty whether it wins or not. 

[Jake]

I brewed last night as well. Though I'm saving the winner for next weekend

[Chris Craig]

Well, I had a good practice run of this, I guess.

I mashed about 11.5kg of grain and .5kg of flaked wheat and .25kg of rice hulls.  I had just replaced my stainless braid with a 3/4" hot water heater braid supported inside with a coil of copper wire.

After an hour, I tried to vorlauff and all I got was a trickle.  I emptied the mash tun and added some holes to the braid, but not much luck.  It would have taken hours to sparge enough for the 10 gallon batch I was doing.

I have to brew this again in a couple of days when I replace the braid with a smaller version like I used to have.

Any body have any insight for me?  The crush looked good, the mash looked great.  All I can think of is that the braid must have been too tight to let the wort in fast enough.

[Al-Loves-Wine]

I used similar myself, I found I had to stick a medium sized screwdriver handle down inside the braid to expand it, worked pretty good after that.

[jeffsmith]

If you're looking to go larger than a water supply line braid, I'd recommend a large bazooka screen. I've been using one for a couple years without any issues.

[Chris Craig]

Thanks guys. I suspected this was my problem. I'll go back to the smaller line. It worked OK, but it tended to "float" in the mash.

[Jake]

Sounds like a competition fail to me 

[Chris Craig]

Replaced the braid today.  This time I stretched it out a bit.  This loosened the weave a bit, and it looks a lot better.  I still put a copper coil  inside for strength though.

I'm running this again tomorrow.  In fact, if I have no trouble with the sparge, I'm going to attempt a double brew day where I start mashing the second beer while I'm boiling the first.

I expect it'll take about 5-6 hours to do both.

[Roger]

Wow! I guess I'm no where near as efficient as you yet to attempt a double brew day. Good luck man!

[Chris Craig]

Thanks!

It takes me about 3.5 hours to brew including cleanup, so if I mash and sparge during the boil/chill of the first batch, then I should be boiling again as soon as I get the kettle cleaned out.

[Chris Craig]

Well that was much more successful. The new braid worked perfectly.