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NUCC98

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Thought I'd share a funny story with all of you:

I was brewing up my 3rd batch of beer Wednesday night. It was the first one I tried straight from a recipe, rather than a kit. By the way, a great tool for all can be found here: http://hbd.org/recipator/

Anyway, it was a Magic Hat #9 clone, and everything was going perfect. I started going through some of the posts I had read on here, as well as some articles I've browsed through and thought "Wow...guess I'm lucky that I haven't had a boil-over or some other problem yet....." NEVER even THINK those words!!! I added the hops (2 oz. of Amarillo) for the last 15 minutes of the boil and made a HUGE mistake: I covered my brew pot. I left the kitchen and went back to my living room. No more than 5 minutes later, I started to wonder why my smoke detector was going off. I sauntered back to the kitchen to find my brew pot violently erupting wort. I removed the lid completely, and it all settled back down, but not before making my stove look like someone puked all over it. Luckily, most of the hops remained in the pot, and everything cleaned up nicely. I chuckled about it for the remainder of the process, and I'm happy to report it's fermenting perfectly. The odor from the airlock is cluing me in that it's going to have just the right amount of bitterness, too...

Hope you enjoyed the story, and feel free to share your own visits from Murphy!!! Hahahah!!!
 
Thanks for the story. My first brew will be next week....now I know what not to do. :)






lol...."sauntered back to the kitchen"
 
NUCC98 said:
... I left the kitchen and went back to my living room. No more than 5 minutes later, I started to wonder why my smoke detector was going off. I sauntered back to the kitchen to find my brew pot violently erupting wort. I removed the lid completely, and it all settled back down, but not before making my stove look like someone puked all over it.....

I think we have all been there ;-)

Best regards and a happy new year!

Christian
 
Well…my Magic Hat #9 Clone is finished, and is bottle conditioning. Tried it out last night, and it wasn’t too bad. I’ll probably monkey around with the recipe a bit for next time, as for the hops schedule. It’s just on the cusp, in my opinion, of perfect bitterness. It could also have been a result of most of the hops being launched from my brewpot during boiling……..DOH!!! Anyway, here’s the recipe:

6 lbs. Extra Light Dry Extract
.5 lbs. Caramel/Crystal Malt (60L pref.)
2 Oz. Amarillo (8.3%)
1 Tsp. Irish Moss
4 Oz. Apricot Extract
1 Pkg. Dry Ale #04 (Safale)

1. Steeped the grains for about 45 minutes
2. Add dry extract and 1 oz. of hops
3. Boil for 30 minutes
4. Add remaining 1 oz. of hops
5. Boil for 15 minutes
6. Add Irish Moss
7. Boil another 15 minutes
8. Add Apricot flavoring at bottling

Note: This is what I figure for an adjusted recipe. The original had all 2 oz. of hops added in the last 15 minutes of the boil. Doing it this way, it should tack on another 5 – 10 IBUs…
 
I used to do full volume boils in an 8 gallon pot. It covered 2 burners on one side of the stove. Between all the boilovers and the heat, the top of the stove became discolored. Made peace with the better half, bought her a new stove and moved my brewing outside with a couple of cajun cookers. Now all is bliss :D
 
I can't tell you what it was, exactly, but somehow, I managed to get her to buy the cajun cookers in defense of her own stove.

On the one occasion when I had a severe boilover, my honey was at work. I figured I did a really dandy job of cleaning it up - had the stove sparkling. When she came home, she stepped in the only place I missed when I mopped up - a nicely sticky spot in the middle of the kitchen floor. I smiled, allowed as how she enjoyed drinking the fruits of my labors as much as I do and she surprised me the next day with the means to move brewing outdoors.

God, I love that woman! :cool:
 
i just got the look as my wife scrubbed like a banshee inside the burners on our range... i wiped the stuff up off the side and top of the stove on the last boil over, but never got down under the burners/grate. it didn't look like she was having fun :)
 
t1master said:
i just got the look as my wife scrubbed like a banshee inside the burners on our range... i wiped the stuff up off the side and top of the stove on the last boil over, but never got down under the burners/grate. it didn't look like she was having fun :)

...and that same bunt hops smell is there for like the next 8 million times you use your stove.....speaking of misadventures....I'm going to start brewing an Imperial Stout tomorrow probably....any advice to avoid any potential problems? I've read a lot that the fermentation of those bad boys can get pretty crazy....
 
for the imperial, i would get a nice big 6.5 gal glass fermentor and a smaller 5 gallon one and let it sit forever before bottling it. ;) six months to a year in the secondary!!! that seems to be the norm for the imperial stout. i want to do one as well, but i'm saving that for later on down the road when i'm a tad more confident of my brewing abilities and i have a batch or two ready to consume whilst i wait.
 
t1master said:
for the imperial, i would get a nice big 6.5 gal glass fermentor and a smaller 5 gallon one and let it sit forever before bottling it. ;) six months to a year in the secondary!!! that seems to be the norm for the imperial stout. i want to do one as well, but i'm saving that for later on down the road when i'm a tad more confident of my brewing abilities and i have a batch or two ready to consume whilst i wait.
So when you let something be in the secondary for that long do you still use an air lock? or can you just cap it/plug it up?
 
i'm no expert, but i would say use the air lock, cause there is going to be some secondary fermentation that occurs in the carboy, and you need to let the pressure out in a manner other than launching the cork into the atmosphere ;)

it should be fun though, i bought a second glass carboy specifically to age the stout in when i do the brew.
 
NUCC98 said:
...and that same bunt hops smell is there for like the next 8 million times you use your stove.....speaking of misadventures....I'm going to start brewing an Imperial Stout tomorrow probably....any advice to avoid any potential problems? I've read a lot that the fermentation of those bad boys can get pretty crazy....
I've never done an Imperial... but I guess it goes without saying that you'd be using a blow off tube instead of an air lock for the primary fermentation ;)
Sounds like fun... let us know what the primary is like?
 
Witbier said:
I've never done an Imperial... but I guess it goes without saying that you'd be using a blow off tube instead of an air lock for the primary fermentation ;)
Sounds like fun... let us know what the primary is like?

My primary is a 6 gal. bucket...just finished putting it all in there. Using an airlock, so I'll keep an eye on it. There's about 10 lbs. of malt in there, about 7 lbs. of grains that were steeped, 1 lb. of dark brown sugar, and hops running around like 13 oz. of 4 different varieties...I ran it through the Recipator, and it's got a color rating of around 400....heheh, no light shall escape from this black hole!!!
 
rightwingnut said:
Can I have some?

Heheh...teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime...so here's the recipe:

Amount Item
1 lb. Dark Munich
2 lb. Crystal
1 lb. Chocolate
1 lb. Black Patent
.75 lb. Roasted Barley
6.6 lb. Dark Malt Extract
3 lb. Light Malt Extract
1 lb. Brown Sugar
7 oz. Chinook
2 oz. Cascade
2 oz. Fuggles
3 oz. Kent Goldings
2 lb. Flaked Oats
5 gm Nottingham Yeast

1. Steep grains and oats for 45 minutes
2. Add extract, brown sugar, and 6 oz. of Chinook for 15 minute boil
3. Add 1 oz. of Cascade, Chinook, Fuggles, and Kent Goldings for 15 minutes
4. Add 1 oz. of Kent Goldings for 15 minutes
5. Add 1 oz. of Fuggles & Kent Goldings for 15 minutes
 
rightwingnut said:
That's a big beer...I think I may try that next (after my porter).

Heh...yeah it is. When my local HBS guy went to go cash me out, all he could say was "Woah...that's a lot of malt".....most likely why my Power of The Dark Side Imperial Stout unleased its Jedi wrath all over the place on Sunday night.....doh!!!!
 
rightwingnut said:
Excellent name!! :)

Thanks....here's what the label's gonna be....The Deltas, btw, is my band...

powerofthedarkside1ar.jpg
 
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