Finally back in action!

Yo guys! I'm 30 minutes into my boil on my first batch of beer in two years! (Sept 28, '08 to be exact)


Here is a pic of my temporary, and ghetto, outdoor setup.

Note the new 15 gallon Tarhong aluminum kettle, drilled and mounted with a 1/2" ball valve, arbitrarily restricted to 3/8" on the hosing since that's what my other gear is, but with the option of switching the barb later when i get nice 1/2" brewday hosing.


The beer is a generic pale-ish-wheat ale. Extract, no grains at all, just so I can dry run my equipment (but still get beer from it).

3# Xtra-Light DME at 60 minutes
1/2 oz Cascade 6.5%AA at 60 minutes
1/2 oz ish Hersbrucker 3.2%AA (old) at 20 minutes
3.3# Briess Wheat LME at 20 minutes
1/2 oz Cascade 6.5%AA at 20 minutes
1/2 oz ish Hersbrucker 3.2%AA (old) at 20 minutes
2 packs of old Safale US-05 to ensure enough yeast get in it.

Bottoms up! Will post back when I'm done!

There are so many things I want to comment on in this picture! First, what is that on the tip tier of the stand? Second, what is on top of your grill? Third, is that a highlife on previously mentioned third tier? But most importantly.... WELCOME BACK!!!!

Brew went smoothly! I got a really good whirlpool, and excellent break on all of my trub. Picture attached below.

That's a pest sprayer (bought it new specifically for brewing, NOT re-used!!) filled up with StarSan, to spray things on-demand. That's a small piece of picket fencing, I put it on there because I moved the kettle on top of the Weber grill to get extra height for cooling through my CFC. And yup, that's a can of High Life.

And thanks! Now, bedtime, i'm out of brewin' shape, my back hurts! lol

Nothing ghetto there! And welcome back

That looks like a really nice cold break! Looks like you have an identical setup to mine, other than you use a counter-flow chiller and I'm stuck with the immersion.

It's a Phil's Chiller, found on consignment for $40 back when I had first started. Otherwise I too would own an IC, as CFCs are a little bit fiddly to clean/maintain, while an IC is easy - just dunk it in 10 minutes early and you're there.

Once I return to doing All Grain I already have a blue Igloo 48qt mash tun, plain' ol rectangle with a stainless-steel toilet braid for its' manifold, that has served me fantastically well so far. However, last night I used every shelf on that orange storage unit for something or another, so I'll need to re-think where to put the mash tun during action. I'll also need a better long-term solution for my brew kettle height (in order to get good gravity feed into the CFC) as the Weber grill is quite old, I wouldn't want to cause it to collapse, because I still grill on it.