esvoytko

Recipes 

Yesterday was my first brew day. I think it went relatively well, although be on the lookout for the ubiquitous "my fermentation is stalled" thread in about 24 hours! I kid, I kid. I brewed an ESB, by the way.


It's totally normal to organize your ingredients like this, right? Right.


Stirring the malt into the mash.


Tea towels for impromptu insulation.


Commencing liquor-grist separation.


Sparging.


Hot break ahoy!


One gallon batch = kitchen sink ice bath reaches 70 degrees in about 5 minutes.


All done!

Comments and questions welcome!

Beer-lord

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Looks like you've made beer!

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kh54s10

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Lookin' good!

I lay out my ingredients in a similar way except I label them by the time (minutes left) that they go into the boil. And I brew all grain so the base and crystal would be milled into my grain bucket together.

If you haven't thought about fermentation temperature, I would find a place to control the temperature of the fermentation in the low to mid sixties. A bucket with some water in the bottom and bottles of ice. "swamp cooler"

Double_D

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Nice. I like the pasta pot lauter tun!

esvoytko

Recipes 

Thanks all!

Re: the pasta insert lautering - yeah, I live in a studio apartment (390 sq ft) so I need my kitchen to look like a kitchen, not a mad-scientist brewhouse! I don't like one-task equipment in there.

Re: fermentation temperature - I live in a basement apartment in Seattle, where the indoor temperature quite seriously never leaves the 60 - 70 degree range, even with no heating or A/C. I may begin to worry about that later as I get more into this. You might also be horrified to know that I took no hydrometer readings and eyeballed my grain and hops measurements! Haha.

esvoytko

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Update: 20 hours in and I've got steady airlock bubbling. It's alive! It's alive!! <Insert goofy, ecstatic, rookie homebrewer grin>

hotspurdotus

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Very nice photo album.

Satisfy my curiosity on one point; are those all the actual ingredients you used in the first pic? Was their more base grain hiding somewhere outside the pic?

I haven't used whole hops before, but that seems that a LOT of hops compared to the amount of grain.

icanbenchurcat

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If it tastes good, your recipe was spot on!

And if it doesn't, give it a few more weeks ;-)

GulfCoastGirl

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Well look at you all organized with everything laid out and labeled. I should follow your lead and do the same.... maybe if I had everything laid out neatly I wouldn't have forgotten the coriander in my last Belgian Wit

Congrats on your first brew day..... now it's all about the patience

bigbeergeek

Recipes 

Well done!

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