Rye Pale Ale

Yesterday I decided to brew a Rye Pale Ale. I enjoy going to Terripan Brewery so I got the inspiration to make one. I had to order the grains since the local shop didn't carry alot of ingredients that I put in this recipe.

Everything went smooth. I was a little off with hitting the first infusion. I hit 172F and got it to 152F. I was shooting for 154F. No biggy just for future reference I will need to shoot a little higher due to the mash tun taking a lot of the heat. I re adjusted the heat when I added 1 gal at the 50 min mark and got it right at 154-155 to give me 3.25 gals of wort. I added 3.5 gals for the mash out at 188-189F and hit right at 167-168F.

I think I need to have a little more wort prior to boiling and came a little short.

 Well, when I started the boil it started snowing pretty heavy. I was afraid that when I was cooling the wort that some of the snow was getting in the wort. Hopefully it didn't bother it to much.
I forgot to take a final reading before sealing it up but I did take a reading pre boil and got a pretty high reading, which can't be right b/c I know my efficiency can't be that good so I will just have to take a reading in a week to see where its at.

Estimated Pre Boil OG: 1.046

Estimated Original Gravity: 1.061

Estimated Final Gravity: 1.017

Estimated Alcohol By Volume: 5.73%

Update notes:
02/14/10
Man the yeast started working 5 hrs after brewing on 02/12/09 and it has been going Strong for two days. I wish I would have used a carboy to watch it, but I know the blow off would be crazy.