Wheat Porter 2

On September 14, I brewed Dick's Elixir Wheat Porter again. This time, I intend to add some coffee at kegging.

The last time I made this was also my second all-grain batch in five years or so. I made some mistakes, but still wound up with a pretty good beer. I used a bit less water in my mash. I added about a third of the water, mixed in a third of the grains, added another third of the water, stirred in another third of the grains. I came close to my mash temperature, only five degrees low. I heated up another 6 gallons of water to sparge with. When it came time to sparge, the plug on one end of my sparge arm was missing, and so I had to batch sparge. For the first time.

I mash in a 5 gallon mash tun from Williams brewing. I have had it for nine years or so. While it's served me well, I haven't had too much luck this go round. Basically it is, when full, a three foot column of grain and water that is impossible to stir! So with my problems, my FG was 1048, about 30 points low, but close to what I got last time.

So now I have to find a bigger mash tun, and am leaning towards a rectangular cooler. Thanks to Hurrican Ike evacuees, our Wal-Mart only has the 40 quart cubes. I'm afraid the cube shaped ones will have the same problem as my mash tun. I want a rectangular 48 quart, so I can get the grain spread out rather than in a 3 foot high column.

If that doesn't help, I may be selling off my brewing equipment!