So lately I have been doing some SERIOUS malting. The first batch of wheat malt I made ended up in a terrible beer. TERRIBLE. But I now have four batches of beer made from all home malted, home toasted, 100 percent Colorado grains.

Today was a crazy day. Brewed a beer, and I assumed my usual 75% efficiency when I put the recipe together. I also decided to do a REAL fly sparge... and it took forever. An hour to be exact. Apparently the word "sparge" literally means "to sprinkle," which is what I did. Sprinkled water over the grain bed til I eventually had all the sweet wort I needed to brew.

Problem is, I kinda sorta forgot about it, and I ended up getting a gallon more than I needed without realizing it. I really don't know how this happened, it just did. Anyways, as I was getting near the end of the boil, I checked how much wort I had, and it was 4 friggin gallons. Great I thought. Now Im gonna have a super weak beer. So, I came to terms with it, and I proceeded to start cooling down my wort.

This is where things get awesome.

After cooling the wort, I took a gravity reading, 1.055. Which was only 4 points under what I was aiming for if I had THREE gallons of wort. With 75% efficiency, and an extra gallon of wort, it should have been around 1.044.

So after a lot of checking, double checking, Google searching, forum trolling, and soul searching, I finally was able to except an awesome fact. Even if only for today, I rocked a 93.8% brewhouse efficiency.

So. Friggin. Awesome.

The End.

Busy day. Barley is fully modified, so I finally got to use my new contraption that I built a week or so ago!

It works *great*. Its been literally holding 104 degrees all day. Perfect!

I also made roasted barley
and what ended up being light, medium and medium/dark crystal.

The light is still in the oven drying a bit more.

Tomorrow I will cure some pale malt hopefully and make some other toasted malts. I love this! When I first did the wheat, I was starting to feel overwhelmed. But after using this GREAT barley from Colorado Malting, I have made a complete 180. I am starting to fall really feel as attached to this as I am to brewing... I HAVE TOTAL CONTROL. I AM THE MASTER OF ALL MY BEERS.

BRYAN RULES