Homebrewers - Whats in the fermenter?

[kaisersozei]

Another Brewherf yesterday with Ferg & Matt, although I couldn’t officially brew since all my fermenters are currently tied up.

However, we made Attempt #2 at an unconventional second runnings mix-mash: after sparging & draining the grain bed, we let the mashtun sit while we continue our brewday. After a few hours, the coolers will have collected up usually another gallon or so of wort (not technically second runnings, I guess, because this is after the sparge.) We collect up all the runnings in a brewpot, and then fire up a small batch of this small beer, toss in some hops, then ferment with whatever yeast we might have handy.

MixMash #1 in March was about a gallon of Kolsch-Smoked Oktoberfest mixture (OG 1.039), that we hopped with Centennial and Saaz, fermented with Bell’s yeast. Ended up with about 3.9% ABV, 25 IBUs, bottle carb’d, and sampled it yesterday--I have to say, it was pretty damn good! Definitely a session beer that retained some characteristics of its two parents.

MixMash #2 yesterday was from Ferg’s Saison + Matt’s Oktoberfest. I took home about 2 gallons last night, boiled, hopped with Centennial, Hallertauer & Saaz to 35 IBUs, pitched a starter of some yeast that I harvested out of a Blue Mountain Brewery Imperial Stout, and it’s bubbling away this morning.

No idea what we’re making, or how much fermentable sugars we’re able to extract from just the sparge, but it’s been a fun experiment!