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10-18-15 Cold steeped grains in 1 gallon of water. Added some for grain absorbtion (I think half gallon). Ended up with only about 1/2 gallon of steeping wort. So I rinsed with about 1 quart or so. Not sure if this was a good idea. Next time I'll steep with 2 gallons and measure the remainder and calculate that in the water volumes. Mash went OK but I added too much lactic acid and hit 4.8 pH. Will have to look into how this could impcat the beer. Also starting gravity was low again. 1.041 vs 1.048 so we boiled an extra 20 mins to boil of some gravity points. Saw that we were going to end up with an extra gallon of wort that wouln't fit into the two carbouys so Tom and I decided to pull off one gallon of wort at flame out but before adding the steeping grains wort to see what a 'white stout' would be like. We proportioned the yeast too so we'll see.... 11-1-15 1-14-16 Just did some reading on cold steeping. Gordon strong suggests 2Qt to 1# of grain. So that would be 6 QT/1.5 Gal for the 3# in this reciepe. However, somone also suggested GS recommends adding more grains when you cold steep. I don't know if I have already done that though...Perhaps I did have too much water in my last batch which could leave the beer lacking some of the roastiness. Maybe I'll add some grain - maybe 1# roasted barley and 1/2# Chocolate malt. I think the beer is chcoclatey enough already. But I do want some additional roastiness. I could also look at mashing the roasted barley for the last 10 mins of the mash. I read that can add some roastiness. 6-11-17 Mash Temp ended at 153*F. No cold steeping. PH 4.95 in the mash. Added 3g CaCl/10g Gypsum. Started mash at 7:10 am and mashed for 3:20. That I think pushed the efficiecy higher to around about 90% according to BS. Mash conversion efficiency was calculated at 94%. 12-15-18 Targeting 5.5 pH per Martin Bruengard, "below 5.4 may result in the roast notes in beer becoming harsh or acrid." "keep sulfate modest (50ppm) is important in roasty beers since roast and sulfate are both drying on your palate" Mashed at 155*F and 5.3 pH. Added mash salts only to strike water volume. Then set to heating sparge water. 12-5-21 I built up the yeast with a can of Proper Starter and 12 oz boiled and cooled water for a 2L starter. The physical quantity looked low to me after cold crashing. Mash temp a little low at 152*F. Mash pH was 5.22 with no dark grains. Upon checking the tun temp at the end of the mash it was inexplicably 158*F. FWIW in order to speed up time to boil, I pulled out some of the sweet wort 2-3 times to heat it to boiling on the stove. I was trying to get it up to temp so I could finish the boil in time to leave for church - which I did. When adding the 2# of lactose, the boil stopped - for future reference. After the boil was done,I left the hot wort covered with a towel for the 2 hours between flame out and cooling, during which it dropped to 160*F. Did not need ice to get the wort down to 65*F. Oxygenated for about a minute. Flow seemed to be low.