Mulligan ESB

On Saturday my buddy Cole came over and brewed with me. This was nice, as he has a wort chiller and it made the cooling process very simple. Perhaps next time I'll try going with *both* an ice bath and the wort chiller. In addition to the chiller, two more experiments were conducted with this beer: first, and probably foremost, I used tap water instead of bottled for this brew; second, I aerated the entire wort by agitating the carboy after pitching the yeast. It will be interesting to see the final results.

The Recipe:
10 lb 2-row pale malt
1 lb crystal 120°L

10.25 AAU (23g @ 12.5% AA) Galena hops @ 60 min
5 AAU (23g @ 6% AA) Cascade hops @ 15 min
2 AAU (10g @ 5.5% AA) Tettnanger hops @ 5 min

1 Irish Moss tablet @ 15 min

Wyeast 1968 - London ESB

Single infusion mash for 60 mins at about 148° using about 13 qts and sparged with ~180-190° water until I had about 25 qts for the boil.

OG: 1.056
Est. IBU: 54.1

The only odd thing which happened was related to my quest to increase mash efficiency. I took a sample of the wort pre-boil and got a gravity reading of 1.026, which seemed extremely low. In hindsight, I think I just took a sample from the top of my kettle after sparging without actually mixing up the wort; this would mean I just got the tail end and none of the early-mash goodness. My boil took me from 25 qts to 20, so I'm guessing my pre-boil gravity was actually more along the lines of 1.045, based on my measured OG.

Using 1.045 for my pre-boil gravity, I would have got just over 69% mash efficiency, which is right in line with the numbers I've been getting. My sparging at between 180° and 190° was an attempt at better efficiency, but it's hard to say whether the temperature made much difference, seeing as my efficiency is getting marginally better with each brew session. I think my next attempt should include trying to get a finer crush at the homebrew store.