Someone had previously asked me before about how I go about cleaning my gear. I do not have a sink or floor drain in my brew room, but I do have a walk in shower in the basement that is no more than 20 feet away from my brew room that I clean my pots and equipment in. Just so everyone can get a quick visual, this is my MLT in the shower ready to be cleaned.
Once I've add my first hop addition at 60 minutes and started my timer, the sample of my sparge runnings has cooled enough to get a proper reading and calculate my efficiency of my brew session. My eight gallons of wort had a gravity of 1.040 at 61 degrees, which equals a total of 320 Gravity Units. My grain bill calculated at 100% was a total of 366.5 Gravity Units. So once you divide 320 into 366.5, I came out with an efficiency of 87.3% for this brew day. I aim for my standard of 90% on this system so I fell I little short, but not by much.
As the end of the boil approaches I start a siphon from a 5 gallon bucket of Star San and pump it through my wort pump, CFC, and all the hoses. Some people choose to sanitize the CFC by recirculating hot wort for the last 5-10 minutes of the boil, but I had an issue with compacting the hops on my Hop Stopper when I tried recirculating at full throttle with my pump so I've switched to this method. Once I start to chill my wort I basically dump the Star San in the lines into a little bucket until I see the beer begin come out of the end of the hose. Then I will switch the hose over to my carboy and begin filling it up. This method has worked well for me as the Star Stan left in the lines also helps to create a nice siphon to start and pull the beer out of the kettle and down towards the pump.
Thanks to my warm as hell ground water I can only get my wort down to just over 80 degrees in my CFC. I can't wait for fall and winter to roll around so I can get my wort down to pitching temps in a single pass through my chiller. After I fill my carboy I toss it in my fermentation chamber with a sealed carboy cap on top of it to let it cool down to my fermentation temp, 70 degrees for this beer, before pitching my yeast. As long as you be sanitary with all your equipment I don't worry about any infections as it normally takes just about an hour or two to go from just over 80 degrees down to pitching temp at 70.
Here is a cool shot of the awesome cold break you get in your carboy thanks to the rapid chilling of the CFC. Seeing stuff like this just makes me smile! I know some brewers who get really worried about all the cold break getting into their carboy, but I am of the camp that cold break is an important component of yeast nutrition and food so in my book its the more the merrier! I rack off all of it in the end anyway and leave it behind so no worries for me.
Here is my aeration device, its main purpose is to degas wine but once you attach it to a drill and see the results of the aeration it seems very effective. I think my next upgrade will be to move up to an oxygen tank and diffusion stone, but for now this is a cheap and simple solution for aeration that is way more effective than shaking the carboy like I used to.
And here is a quick shot of the carboy after a minute of whipping the wort up into a frenzy with my aeration tool and drill.
After the kettle is emptied completely into the carboy I snapped a quick shot of the trub and hot break that is left behind thanks to the Hop Stopper. I know some people have had a little trouble getting their kettles to work with this device properly, but I think once you figure out the proper procedure for using it it's an excellent device.
The beer came out to an original gravity of 1.053, just shy of my predicted 1.054. I gave it a quick taste before tossing it into my fermentation chamber to cool down to pitching temp and I think it will be a great first attempt at this style. I will post some follow up picks of the beer once its kegged and ready to be served so you all can see the full results from start to finish.
I hope this brew day walk through was a help to everyone who wanted to see one on the system, I tried to capture all the important parts with pictures but if I missed anything please let me know. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions about my system and or process when I use it so please ask away.
Thanks everyone and happy brewing!
Matt
