what's 20% between friends?

so this weekend i brewed up a stout. as far as i could tell, this was the best controlled all-grain brew i've done yet, with only one hiccup: we had an unnoticed kink in the exit line from the wort chiller, which slowed down coolant throughput and decreased cooler efficiency to levels around where i'd have been without hte fancy pumping system i whipped up special for this brew. sigh.

so i pitched a little hot. wasn't the first time, hopefully the last.

but more fun than that, i grossly underestimated the efficiency of my system, or: i had an explosion of efficiency due to my own tweaking. i formulated a recipe based on teh 55% extraction efficiency of my previous brew, and took a couple measures to address what i thought were problems hte last time. as a result, i ended up with 75% efficiency and one hell of an imperial stout wort: 1.094-1.096. sadly, i had not hte hops to bring the BU:GU past .5, but then, that was my planned BU:GU for the sweet stout i was intending to brew.

so, i'll have a sweet imperial stout with, probably, low attenuation (the yeast (Wy1968) is a generally capable strain, i think, but it's not especially intended for high gravity) despite my manly starter, and quite the unusual flavor profile from the fat load of blackstrap molasses i dumped in there.

should be an interesting experience. on tap, of course!