Alton Brown - Homebrew - You Tube

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Really though, aside from boiling his steeping grains - there wasn't anything that was too far out there. Most everything else can be attributed to things you learn to perfect your brew. And I did say most everything, I'd never bottle a beer that was still bubbling.
 
I'm with Brandon. I want to see Giada homebrew and I don't care what she does as long as she has a low cut shirt on and leans over several times throughout the episode. She can spit in the wort for all I care or add her own special yeast. THat's what Food Network is all about, baby!!!
 
what about putting the ice in the fermenter to cool the wort... is this okay to do? I'd never heard that before and I'm sick of waiting for my wort to cool. The immersion wort chiller I have is really getting annoying; doesn't work quickly enough for me.
 
It's probably ok, but I wouldn't trust commercial ice to be sterile enough to do it every batch. I'd be willing to try it if you boil the water you're going to freeze and use sanitized containers... I'm going to try this next batch. +1 on the waiting for cooling is a pain.
 
what about putting the ice in the fermenter to cool the wort... is this okay to do? I'd never heard that before and I'm sick of waiting for my wort to cool. The immersion wort chiller I have is really getting annoying; doesn't work quickly enough for me.



Hook 10ft of copper tubing up to your kettle/cooler spigot with some silicone tubing and put it in a bucket of ice water.


I'm not really into immersion chillers. Something about having my cooling wort exposed to the air just irks me, although I'm probably a worry-wort :D because I work with tuberculosis bacteria.

My setup is silicone tubing hooked up to my boil kettle, which goes to a counterflow chiller, more tubing, hooked up to copper tubing in ice water, and more tubing that runs into my carboy. It cools 5 gallons of boiling wort to 70 degrees in under 10 minutes. The counterflow chiller drops the temperature to slightly warm and the copper tubing in ice water does the rest that faucet temp water can't do.

One of these days I'll remember to take a picture so I can post it on here.
 
what about putting the ice in the fermenter to cool the wort... is this okay to do? I'd never heard that before and I'm sick of waiting for my wort to cool. The immersion wort chiller I have is really getting annoying; doesn't work quickly enough for me.

I have done it several times, and made acceptable infection free beer every time.

I only used store bought ice once. I have a big stainless bowl i keep in my freezer, and make my own ice with water from a Brita filter. My ice would count for about 1galon of my final volume, and would be topped the rest of the way with water that was at a temprature needed to meet pitching temprature of 70deg.
 
I'm with Brandon. I want to see Giada homebrew and I don't care what she does as long as she has a low cut shirt on and leans over several times throughout the episode. She can spit in the wort for all I care or add her own special yeast. THat's what Food Network is all about, baby!!!

You wouldn't see her cleavage though because her oversized head would take up most of the camera angle.

She is very attractive, I agree, but her dome is like Sistene Chapel-sized. I'll take Nigella Lawson over Giada, need a little meat on them bones!
 
what about putting the ice in the fermenter to cool the wort... is this okay to do? I'd never heard that before and I'm sick of waiting for my wort to cool. The immersion wort chiller I have is really getting annoying; doesn't work quickly enough for me.

Pre-chiller.

Run your hose (or an extra copper coil, if you happen to have one) through an ice water bath, either in your second sink, a big pot, or even a rubbermaid-type cooler. If you put a bunch of salt in the ice water, it will work even better, but it might affect your coil if it's sitting in ice water for long or often.

If you want to use only tap water to drop your temp, you will get it down to 90F in an acceptable time frame, but from there it takes forever. A pre-chiller is your answer.
 
THE episode is on right now (Cooking Channel).

My wife randomly put it on and I'm entranced now. Who did his research for him? This show is a disaster!

Just watched it again myself! This has been beaten to death. Alton is responsible for inspiring me to brew, and I'm not alone. That being said, he had many things in that episode that were really off the mark. After seeing it for the first time I went online to research homebrewing for myself. I found the MoreBeer forum and there were several discussions on his faulty terminology and methods.

Obviously he wasn't mashing or sparging anything. He was steeping and straining. He also boiled the grains! Yuck! Just to name a few. All the discussions I found helped me to make his recipe, minus the glaring mistakes, and my first brew came out awesome! I'll be forever grateful to Alton for getting me started on this journey!

I've always hoped that Alton would get feedback on all the mistakes he made and decide to do another episode showing the correct methods. Maybe someday!
 
We should all email Food Network and ask them to do another home brewing episode. Tell them to read up on HBT first this time.
 
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