Well, I did it. First brew is in the fermenter in the cool basement.
I was hoping to brew today, but with Sandy approaching wasn't sure I'd get to it. Had a break in the weather, though so I decided to go for it- not knowing when I'd get my next chance at it.
Went well aside from a few rookie mistakes towards the end.
Threw together my 1/2" - 50' immersion chiller. Bought all the parts from cooper tubing supplies. It went very easily. I wound it around a keg, soldered a couple joints and off to brewing.
Brewed NB Brickwarmer kit.
The burner worked great. Brought 4gal of water to 160 and steeped the specialty grains for 20min. Back to boiling and added DME and some of the LME. Added hops and stirred. All going as planned....
Then, it began to rain. Ugh. LOL. holding umbrella over the pot. Cleaned IC into the wort at 15min left. More hops and the remaining LME at 10min left. Orange bits at flameout. Fired up the IC and brought it to 70 degrees in 10min or so. IC pulled out.
Then the problems began... Poured the wort to the fermenter, pulled out big particles with slotted spoon I had been using for stirring the wort with the chiller. Then added the top-off water. Two errors here- it came up higher on the spoon handle than I would have liked, and it wasn't cooled as well as I thought! UGH. water back up to 90. Carried bucket into the house, up the steps and to the tub. Started the cold water and poured in all the ice from the ice maker into the tub. Took forever to get down from 90 to 78. It futzing around with the ice bath, I think I may have gotten one drop of dirty tub water in the beer (it was either that or sanitizer run off). Dry yeast was rehydrated, though I forgot to check the water temp before adding them to the rehydration water. So, I put that in a 70 degree bath in the sink. covered with plastic wrap and forgot to sanitize it until about 10min later.
But, now everything is cleaned up and put away, so I'm relaxing with ANOTHER brew- I've earned a couple!
oh, OG was 1.060 and box said should be 1.062, so I'm happy.
I was hoping to brew today, but with Sandy approaching wasn't sure I'd get to it. Had a break in the weather, though so I decided to go for it- not knowing when I'd get my next chance at it.
Went well aside from a few rookie mistakes towards the end.
Threw together my 1/2" - 50' immersion chiller. Bought all the parts from cooper tubing supplies. It went very easily. I wound it around a keg, soldered a couple joints and off to brewing.
Brewed NB Brickwarmer kit.
The burner worked great. Brought 4gal of water to 160 and steeped the specialty grains for 20min. Back to boiling and added DME and some of the LME. Added hops and stirred. All going as planned....
Then, it began to rain. Ugh. LOL. holding umbrella over the pot. Cleaned IC into the wort at 15min left. More hops and the remaining LME at 10min left. Orange bits at flameout. Fired up the IC and brought it to 70 degrees in 10min or so. IC pulled out.
Then the problems began... Poured the wort to the fermenter, pulled out big particles with slotted spoon I had been using for stirring the wort with the chiller. Then added the top-off water. Two errors here- it came up higher on the spoon handle than I would have liked, and it wasn't cooled as well as I thought! UGH. water back up to 90. Carried bucket into the house, up the steps and to the tub. Started the cold water and poured in all the ice from the ice maker into the tub. Took forever to get down from 90 to 78. It futzing around with the ice bath, I think I may have gotten one drop of dirty tub water in the beer (it was either that or sanitizer run off). Dry yeast was rehydrated, though I forgot to check the water temp before adding them to the rehydration water. So, I put that in a 70 degree bath in the sink. covered with plastic wrap and forgot to sanitize it until about 10min later.
But, now everything is cleaned up and put away, so I'm relaxing with ANOTHER brew- I've earned a couple!
oh, OG was 1.060 and box said should be 1.062, so I'm happy.