Well, I've finished the second batch now. I did another overnight mash. This time, I forgot to setup the manifold in the mash tun, so I had to dump out some of the grain and strike water into a 5 gallon bucket, connect the manifold properly, and then dump back in the grain, and then add the remainder of the strike. Not a terrible mistake, but I need to be a lot more cognizant of what I am doing.
I also put down towels in advance this time which helped a lot. Overall, a smoother brew day, though it was interrupted by things the wife asked me to do. That is one thing about brewing electric and having everything in a permanent location - I was able to go to the grocery store, and just put the element at 50% while I was gone so that when I got back, I could crank it to 100% and get the boil going right away without actually losing much time.
I did an ordinary bitter, another style that should be easy to tell if I have issues with my brewing setup or overall process. I also wanted to start a series using WY1469 which I've never used before, but I have seen posted here in other threads. If I am able to brew as much as I think I'll be able to, I should have a number of beers using this yeast within the next few months.
I also have US-05 going right now with the cream ale. I plan on doing a shorter series with that, ending in a barleywine. If I can save enough to get another chapman fermenter, I may do 20 gallons of the barleywine eventually so that I can start the first vessel of the solera that I've been thinking of doing for a long time.
If I max out the styles I want with these two yeasts, I may then go for a lager yeast and see if I can do a lager series, which I haven't done in years.
Having the sink down there also makes it really easy to clean kegs. I used to have to lug them upstairs to the kitchen to clean which was always a pain.
I've also started a cleaning cycle of the tubing and racking cane that I use - I had noticed a lot of buildup in the racking cane, and from the other thread, I realized I hadn't done a thorough cleaning of the silicone brewing tubing. I did a hot PBW recirculation first, and got a lot of gunk out of everything, especially the racking cane, it was completely cleaned by the end. I then rinsed with hot water, and then did a concentrated (2oz in1 gallon of water) heated saniclean recirculation, and now I'm letting it sit overnight, and then I'll do another recirculation tomorrrow and then a final rinse. I really should do these deep cleanings more often, especially considering how much stuff came out during the PBW phase. The silicone tubing doesn't seem too be that much better, but we'll see how it looks tomorrow after the soak and another recirculation.
