Hey all.
Long post, so bear with me.
My first home brew attempt is now chugging away in my basement after a nerve wracking Saturday brewing. I started with a Hefeweisen ingredient kit and the lowest equipment kit from AustinHomeBrew.com with some upgrades (6.5 gal carboy, carboy caps for the 6.5 and 5 gal, 2 3/4" wracking canes, 5" funnel, 26qt stock pot) full list is in this post: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=33183&page=2
I happened to have a large plastic tub handy which I used to sanitize the gear, then later to give my wort an ice bath.
The cooking portion of the program went well. However the Wyeast slap-pack gave every sign of being DOA. After following the simple yet oddly confusing slapping-directions, the pouch did not expand one iota. I had faith (albeit misplaced) and when it came time to pitch I opened the pouch to find the coffee colored soup and an empty yeast pack, signifying I had correctly slapped the pack.
Due to an overzealous sense of wort protection, I attempted to siphon the chilled wort into the 6.5 gal carboy for primary fermentation and thats when things went from good to "aww crud."
Towards the end of the draw I tipped the stocked pot towards me to insure that the siphon hose stayed deep enough in wort to sustain the draw. At this point the hose mutinied, slid out of the pot onto the floor and the siphon draw reversed gear all over the white tile of the kitchen floor. Then, clearly not thinking, I picked up the now non-sanitiezed hose and dropped it back in the stockpot with the remainder of the wort. Realizing my mistake, I removed the end in the carboy and quickly put the airlock in the now-empty hole.
I discarded the wort remaining in the pot (about quart, plus the mess on the floor... call it 1/2 gallon of concentrated wort wasted) and opened my yeast pack to find it had left the packet correctly and is dead.
Quick trip to the local homebrew, got some yeast, carboy and bottle brushes, then back home. Once home I realized the yeast was a few months past expiration so I made a quick starter.
The yeast did its thing so the next morning I pitched it and now have a happily fermenting jar of slop in the basement.
I'll give it a week head-start then I'm heading back to the homebrew shop (How do You Brew, Newark, DE) to get what I need for a chocolate porter that I'll put in the plastic 7 gal fermenter.
The Hefe recipe is here: http://http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_42_163&products_id=318
OG was 1.043 (.007 off the 1.050 mark in the recipe). I'll give an update when it goes to conditioning.
Ale Eon - formerly Robspages
Long post, so bear with me.
My first home brew attempt is now chugging away in my basement after a nerve wracking Saturday brewing. I started with a Hefeweisen ingredient kit and the lowest equipment kit from AustinHomeBrew.com with some upgrades (6.5 gal carboy, carboy caps for the 6.5 and 5 gal, 2 3/4" wracking canes, 5" funnel, 26qt stock pot) full list is in this post: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=33183&page=2
I happened to have a large plastic tub handy which I used to sanitize the gear, then later to give my wort an ice bath.
The cooking portion of the program went well. However the Wyeast slap-pack gave every sign of being DOA. After following the simple yet oddly confusing slapping-directions, the pouch did not expand one iota. I had faith (albeit misplaced) and when it came time to pitch I opened the pouch to find the coffee colored soup and an empty yeast pack, signifying I had correctly slapped the pack.
Due to an overzealous sense of wort protection, I attempted to siphon the chilled wort into the 6.5 gal carboy for primary fermentation and thats when things went from good to "aww crud."
Towards the end of the draw I tipped the stocked pot towards me to insure that the siphon hose stayed deep enough in wort to sustain the draw. At this point the hose mutinied, slid out of the pot onto the floor and the siphon draw reversed gear all over the white tile of the kitchen floor. Then, clearly not thinking, I picked up the now non-sanitiezed hose and dropped it back in the stockpot with the remainder of the wort. Realizing my mistake, I removed the end in the carboy and quickly put the airlock in the now-empty hole.
I discarded the wort remaining in the pot (about quart, plus the mess on the floor... call it 1/2 gallon of concentrated wort wasted) and opened my yeast pack to find it had left the packet correctly and is dead.
Quick trip to the local homebrew, got some yeast, carboy and bottle brushes, then back home. Once home I realized the yeast was a few months past expiration so I made a quick starter.
The yeast did its thing so the next morning I pitched it and now have a happily fermenting jar of slop in the basement.
I'll give it a week head-start then I'm heading back to the homebrew shop (How do You Brew, Newark, DE) to get what I need for a chocolate porter that I'll put in the plastic 7 gal fermenter.
The Hefe recipe is here: http://http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_42_163&products_id=318
OG was 1.043 (.007 off the 1.050 mark in the recipe). I'll give an update when it goes to conditioning.
Ale Eon - formerly Robspages