Hop Whompus brew day

What a nightmare this turned out to be. I started around 1:00pm and now it's a little after 10:00 and I still haven't pitched the yeast. The biggest problem was I had to use leaf hops and plugs instead of pellets and I don't have a hopback or a decent strainer so I was basically using a slotted spoon to scoop out hops. The hops soaked up a ton of the wort so I ended up topping off with 2 gal of water which most of it wasn't cool so it raised the temp back up over 120F. I don't have a chiller so I should throw it in the bathtub and run some cold water but I don't want to risk cracking the carboy. I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow morning to pitch.

This was also my first 120 minute boil which dragged things out even more.

EDIT: Almost forgot, I was suppose to bottle my 1982 SNPA today too but I forgot to replace my broken bottle filler.

Ai, but at least you were brewing! Bad day at the kettle is better than.....

I'm still figuring out what I'll do for straining with the new keggle (probably fashion a homemade bazooka screen). I wanted to get the top of my keg cut out today, but bought 4 1/2 inch cutting wheels for a 4 inch grinder (I *swear* I bought the bigger one). That, plus the fact it was driving a cold, miserable rain, about a half degree from sleet, I guess that project will wait untl next weekend. Should be able to install the ball value by then as well.

Crappy beer-day except, I suppose, for the beer!

You really need to bag your whole hops or get a filter of some sort. Loosely bag them & you don't lose much effectiveness. The amount of wort they absorb is the main reason I use pellets for bittering and sometimes flavor. I did two batches without a filter, nevermore.

david_42 said:

You really need to bag your whole hops or get a filter of some sort. Loosely bag them & you don't lose much effectiveness. The amount of wort they absorb is the main reason I use pellets for bittering and sometimes flavor. I did two batches without a filter, nevermore.

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But you can always squeeze the bag and reclaim some of that wort and those acids. I'm a bag-squeezer.

I should have used the bag but for some reason it never crossed my mind. I didn't really want to use leaf hops to begin with but that was all the LHBS had left for Centennial.
I'll have to post the recipe so you can all see just how much hops went into this. According to Papazian, the IBU's are suppose to the 200+!