i boiled an english bitter midwest specialty grain kit. 20 minute steep at ~160 (thermometer isn't calibrated right, so i'm not sure). i tried rinsing the grains after the steep with boiling water in a strainer. goldings (5.5AA) 1oz at 60 and 1oz at 2 minutes. i broke down and got a thief and a test jar at northern brewer. sg: 1040 (recipe calls for 1035). very bitter at this point.
i used snow/salt/water in a tub outside to chill. it was amazingly fast and saved me some money, though i slightly over-chilled. pre-dilution was about 80F. used plain tap water for the first time for top-off, which brought it down to 65F. i waited an hour or so for the mixed wort to come up to 70F, the temperature of the starter. i also diverged on the starter by using some dme instead of plain sugar.
checked after 1.5 days in the fermenter, when obvious bubbling stopped. now it's at 1020. the sample was super cloudy with yeast and tasted much better than the first sample. the battle of what-to-get-next is looking like a win for a burner, since the glass-top electrical stove is super slow.
wish list: gas burner, refractometer, digital thermometer with some sort of alarm. the wort chiller won't be needed until the snow goes away.
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