Brooklyn Brew Shop - Chestnut Brown Ale

I recently bought a kit of Chestnut Brown Ale and was curious if anyone had any thoughts on the use of two 6qt pots for the sparging and lautering. I saw in the IPA thread that three 10qt pots would be best, but I am unfortunately limited to the two 6qt pots due to space constraints. That being the case, I would be forced to strain the 2qts of mash prior to heating the 4qts of water to 170F for the sparge. Should I maintain the 2qts at 170F after straining or is it safe to let it sit off the burner while I get the 4qts up to temperature.

I apologize if this is confusing. I'm really looking forward to brewing this and many other recipes (once my new thermometer arrives). Hope to have some 5g carboys shipped once I'm in my new apartment so that I can start my appfelwein and mead

Just thought I'd update. I brewed the beer last night and everything went without a hitch until I cooled the wort. I think when I was checking the temperature, the thermometer was touching the side of the pot causing the reading to be much lower than the actual temp - my fault for not double checking though. Anyways, I wound up pitching the yeast at a much higher temp than I should have but hoping some survived. The temp reading I believe was somewhere around 115F, maybe 120F. Although I thought I read somewhere that the yeasties don't start dying until ~150F, so maybe I'll have a chance. Now it's time to wait and see. Attached are some pictures

Is the pic of the 1-gallon jug a pic of your beer you pitched last night? Did you get a lot of trub from the boil kettle? Is that yeast settled out?

I'm pretty new to brewing (and am about to do a brooklyn kit soon), but is it normal to have that much sediment at the bottom of the fermenter so soon?

I'm pretty new as well (this is my first kit), but I believe the problem was that the wort was way too hot after the ice bath, and so a lot of the stuff floating around didn't have a chance to settle at the bottom of the pot before being poured into the carboy. The directions called for the wort to be 70F before pouring into the carboy, and mine was up around 115F (somehow the initial temperature reading was much lower). So my guess would be as long as yours sits around 70F before moving to carboy and pitching the yeast, you should have less trub starting off. Ultimately I don't think the amount of trub matters so long as you have fermentation occuring. Might be better to see what the more seasoned brewers say though.

Hope it works out, and as they say: RDWHAHB

Hey yeast, it looks like the initial trub was from the boil. This picture was taken about 3 days after pitching the yeast and you can clearly see two layers forming at the bottom.



This was after sitting a full day, quite the initial activity

wherestheyeast said:

Is the pic of the 1-gallon jug a pic of your beer you pitched last night? Did you get a lot of trub from the boil kettle? Is that yeast settled out?

I'm pretty new to brewing (and am about to do a brooklyn kit soon), but is it normal to have that much sediment at the bottom of the fermenter so soon?

Click to expand...

My BBS Chestnut Brown (first batch I ever made) looked the same way after I transferred the wort to the fermenter.

Nice work...looks fine. I like to strain the wort through a few mesh strainers and funnels into the carboy, helps with aeration and to get a little more clarity. A lot of people put it all in so don't worry. Definetly pitched a little high but let us know how it turns out.

What's interesting is that I had a strainer over the carboy when pouring the wort, but I guess it wasn't fine enough mesh. I even had to hold the thing between my knees while pouring .

I have about that much trub in my gallon of Coffee & Donut Stout right now. I had a similar amount in my Everyday IPA. No worries.

How'd this turn out