LogFAQs > #896987668

So this stout had a few problems to start with. The recipe I chose called for a certain amount of black barley but my homebrew shop ran out and only had 75% of what I needed so I added chocolate malt to fill the rest. It is no longer a dry Irish stout. I then added a pound of rolled oats cause why the fuck not. I milled it in November when I got a new kettle, but I went on vacation and started to move to a new place immediately after, and it has been oxidizing ever since.

3+ months later it's brew day. I decide to add another pound of malt I had sitting around cause why the fuck not, this is already a disaster. I get my water to mashing temperature (155) and throw it all in, close the lid and set a timer for an hour. In 15 minutes the temperature is below 140 and I freak out, so I lift my bag and turn on the heat and just hold it for 5 minutes while it gets to 160. It takes 7 minutes to go from 139 to 150, I look at my phone for a minute and it's at 172. At this temperature you're denaturing the enzymes and the starches can't break down into fermentable sugars. I turn the heat off and throw in a bottle of cold water (didn't do anything) and hold the bag up as much as I can while the heat lowers. I give up after it's still at 170 five minutes later and let it sit open until the temp goes down. Close the lid at 165 and start the timer at 45 minutes. This is a disaster but hopefully the extra 2 pounds of grist makes up for the loss of fermentable sugars in that 10 minute nightmare.

First time brewing on this stove with this equipment. Oh and my brand new immersion chiller leaks water into the kettle! It's either putting chlorine into my wort or it's putting in unsanitized water, either way fuck