The following day, Sunday (October 19th), I was lazy and didn't start moving on the batch until almost noon. I really wasn't sure I could do it. But the reason I prepped the yeast was because I knew it would make me brew. (Yes, I'm that 'frugal'). So once I felt I had a good yeast culture, I know I had to make myself get to it.

I gathered , sorted and cleaned up my hardware (including my still virgin mash tun). I also rounded up my "software"; grain, DME, moss, sanitizers, etc. The hops were still in the freezer, more on that later.

As I pulled my plan together, I came to an important realization. I still don't understand how to use Promash to calculate water... I finally gave up trying to figure it out and added my grains to the mash tun covering it (them?) with 168 degree water. A Web based calculator I found indicated that this was the right temp. It wasn't, though it was fairly close. The temp peaked at 156 (for a VERY few minutes) then settled in at 149. None of the additions of higher temperature water brought the temperature up for long. Yes, I preheated my mash ton and even put my grains out in the sun for a couple of hours. This is apparently a fringe science that I, as yet, cant fathom.

I did decide during this process that what I REALLY need is a microwave emitter to fire into the mash tun to bring the temp up without adding more hot water. Come on, how hard would it be to build!? Yea... I can see the headlines now: "Hampton man found dead in his garage after cooking himself with salvaged microwave part ". I can see myself as the winner of a Darwin Award. I guess 149 will do for now.