Belgian Pale Ale Brew Day 7/8/12

This past weekend, I brewed another one of my "experimental" beers that would not be considered experimental by almost any homebrewer.  This was a Belgian Pale Ale, similar to two other recipes I've made, with the major difference between them being the yeast strain.  The idea is a session strength Belgian Ale, with pilsner malt and a bit of unmalted, torrified wheat for the malt bill.  For hops, I've used a moderate amount of a floral hop variety.

The yeast has been the experimental portion.  So far, I've used Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II and Wyeast 3538 Lueven Pale.  The 1762 is a relatively clean Belgian strain, and is the one Rochefort uses in their brewery.  It is distinctly Belgian, but it allows more of the malt and hop profile to come through.  The 3638 is on the other extreme.  It has a very spicy aroma with a more complex and intense flavor.

Today, I'm brewing with Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey.  This is the strain Chimay uses, which feels like the most "classic" of the Belgian yeast profiles.  I'm hoping for the balanced ester and phenol character similar to Chimay's beers, especially the white.

Recipe (5.5 gallons)

Malt:

8.5# Belgian Pilsner Mouterji Dingemans (89%)

1# Torrified Wheat (11%)

Mash:

Single Infusion. 150 degrees for 30 minutes

Hops (39 IBU's):

2 oz. Hallertau Mittlfruh (4.5%AA) @ 90 minutes

1 oz. @ 10 minutes

1 oz. @ flameout

1 oz. dry hop in keg

Yeast:

Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey

Brew Day:

It seems like a minor thing goes wrong on most brew days.  Today, it was a stuck mash that was caused by an equipment malfunction. Here's a picture:

At the bottom, in my mash tun is the stainless steel toilet braid I use to run off the liquid in the mash and leave the grain behind.  If you look at where it attaches to the run-off tube, you'll notice it collapsed on itself and got twisted shut.  Nothing came out when I attempted my first run-off.  To fix the problem, I dumped the entire mash into my brew kettle (at the top of the picture), removed the braid, fixed it, and dumped it all back into the mash tun.  

Theoretically, I run the risk of hot side aeration from all the dumping of a hot mash.  There's a lot of info and debate about HSA, but most brewers aren't concerned about it.  When I brew at New England Brewing Co., there is a ton of hot wort splashing into the kettle, and it doesn't cause any oxidation in the final product.  So good enough for me.