Learning curves

It's been a while. Upgraded to a 60qt kettle and bought a proper heat source. Test driving the new setup with a recent favorite style to brew. 

Batch #103
TBD fruit tart, shooting for 7 gallons total
7 lbs Maris Otter
7 lbs White Wheat Malt
1 lb Acid Malt
0.375 lb Am Crystal 40L

- Day One -

About 1/2 cup grain reserved for lactic acid rest.

Soft water. Built from RO with a little chalk, epsom, and table salt. + gypsum (just shy 3/4 tsp each).

Save a fistful of crushed grain. Mash in targeted at 125F in about 3 gallons water, rest 15 min. Add boiling water to bring to 155F. Rest one hour. Result was 130F and 150F, in about 4.5 gallons total. Did not correct saccharification temp because I had already recombined my sparge water and the hot liquor tank temp was low. 

Lazy, so batch sparged to collect just over 10 gallons. Saved grain added back to wort.

1.2 L starter pulled from sweet wort pitched with Gigayeast Saison II (four months old?! always check the label, especially at an unfamiliar shop...yes I know it's winter) and some ancient Brett Brux that I found in the fridge.
I like the flexibility to have extra water in the kettle going into the mash. I like that my new burner works instead of just coating everything in soot. Running 7-10gal beers is going to take a couple of attempts before I have a smooth operation going.

- Day Two - 

Boil 45 min.
1.5oz Mosaic (11.2%aa) at 10min with whirlfloc.

I don't have a great solution for cooling the new kettle yet. Ambient chill overnight.

- Day Three -

Split into two 4 gallon volumes for fermentation. Pitched the yeast. Fermenting at 68ºF ambient. About 75% grain-to-fermenter volume efficiency (rough estimate)...not bad.

- Day Fifteen - 

Added 1oz Oak cubes and 2oz dried hibiscus to one of the fermenters.

- Day Thirty-one - 

Transferred the beer off of the hibiscus. A few pellicles and a fair amount of other evidence of substantial souring. A few possibilities - unwashed hibiscus and oak, insufficient sanitizing of the bucket, or the glass weight I used to hold the hibiscus bag down carried some sauerkraut bugs with it. Whatever the case... it smells amazing.

- Day What? -
Bottled the regular stuff on 3/3. Bottled the hibiscus on 3/17. Stuff on top was still showing there, reforming after racking in minutes... probably from brettanomyces. SG was still 1.008

OG: 1.052
FG: 1.008
ABV: about 5.8%
IBU: 5-10