Second Brew Documented (With Photos)

Thanks for looking.

I am posting this more as a diary as opposed to a "how to" or "guide" because lets face it, there are better resources to describe the process. That being said, I hope some one can gain insight into the process I use, and maybe some others can offer suggestions on my technique.

Here's the recipe for reference.

Style: Stout
Type: Extract
IBU's: 56.43
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume: 5 Gallons
Color:***32.9 SRM**
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Orig. Gravity:
1.072
Est Fin. Gravity:
1.022
Est. ABV: 7.2%
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Grains & Adjuncts
1.00 lbs Crystal Malt - 90L
0.33 lbs Black Malt
0.33 lbs Roasted Barley
0.50 lbs Barley, Flaked (For Head)
Steeped at 150° for 40 min

2.75 lbs Dark Dry Extract
5.00 lbs Amber Dry Extract
*
Hops
1.00 ozs Pearle - 60 mins
1.00 ozs Chinook - 60 mins

Yeasts
1.0 vile British Ale - White Labs WLP005
**

First off, the LHBS either didn't have a mill, or the check out girl was too lazy to look into it. Either way I left with unmilled grain. This store is actually a larger liquor store, with a home brew section, and there are better options in my area which I will utilize next time.

No mill meant I had to crush the grains with a rolling pin. I probably shouldn't have combined the roasted barley and the black patent in the same bag. The roasted was getting crushed much faster than the black, and in the end I think my color may have suffered. From now on I will only walk away from the LHBS with milled grains.





As you can see, some of the black was not even cracked. Whoops!

On to set up, and sanitization.





I utilize two pots, one for steeping and another for the brew kettle (20 qt.)
I heat the steeping pot to 160°F while the brew pot is also on the heat. By the time the grains are finished steeping the brew pot is almost at boiling and ready to add the DME and hops.



Grains in steeping bags ready to go.



Steeping grains, almost finished.



Grains ready to rinse. With a pyrex 1 qt measuring cup I removed 2.5 quarts of 165° water from my brew kettle, which was on the other burner heating up. I then sparged the grain directly into the brew kettle.




Wort after adding the steeped grain mixture and heating up for the boil.



Dry malt extract ready to go in to the brew kettle.



Before I started to brew I had gathered all my bottles and placed them in this tub. I filled it with hot water and OxyClean to strip the labels. During the down time of steeping and boiling, I worked on stripping the labels.

Continued in next post.

After DME addition.



Hops.



After hops addition.

So now the 60 min countdown begins, and I cracked open a brew and started stripping the labels.









Half way through the boil.



Cooling down the wort in the sink with several water and ice changes. The cool down to 80° took about one hour.



I use a sanitized colander to strain out hops, and to also aid in aeration.

Taking wort for a hydrometer reading was achieved by drawing liquid with a turkey baster and using a hydrometer test jar.

Pitching the yeast was not photographed.

I moved the fermenter down to the basement and waited. There was good bubbling with in 24 hours.

After approximately 60 hours, I noticed a small problem. The wort had bubbled out of the airlock. I was surprised because I have a 6.5 gallon bucket, but later realized that this is common.



I cleaned and sanitized the airlock and the fermentor lid, filled up the airlock and plugged it back in.

The bubbling returned with in 1 minute, indicating a very active fermentation.

Video of air lock bubbling

So now I am monitoring the temperature and trying to keep it consistent as possible.

I hope to have this batch drinkable by St. Patty's day dinner.

Thanks for looking and reading. Comments welcome.

very nice. congrats on your second brew!

black patent adds way more color than flavor so that crush should not be the biggest problem. an as far as being ready for st. patty's i would definatly think so. good luck and keep brewing

Nice process.. its very similiar to mine when I first started out using extracts. One suggestion.. When you get the cash to either build or buy an immerision chiller i suggest doing it... those long ice baths are a constant pain in the a$$.

I bought the copper tubing and fittings for mine www.coppertubingsales.com since it was cheap and I was able to cool in around 15 minutes (depending on water temp.)

For your second brew it looks like you've got your process pretty well dialed in. I especially like the colander with towels over the handles, tucked in below the fermenter handle, Rube Goldberg style.

bradjoiner said:

black patent adds way more color than flavor so that crush should not be the biggest problem.

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Thanks for the reply. I mentioned this because when I took my hydrometer reading, the wort was not as dark as I would have liked. It was a very dark brown, but not black, as I had expected.

Great post! I'm halfway through my first batch and have been wonder about using a colander when I pour into the primary next time. Thought the way you did that was a great idea. Do most people strain? My first kit didn't have it as part of the instructions so I didn't. I definitely had a lot of sediment when transfer over to the secondary this time but was curious if there was any drawbacks to straining? Are flavors different when you strain vs not?

blackswan said:

Great post! I'm halfway through my first batch and have been wonder about using a colander when I pour into the primary next time. Thought the way you did that was a great idea. Do most people strain? My first kit didn't have it as part of the instructions so I didn't. I definitely had a lot of sediment when transfer over to the secondary this time but was curious if there was any drawbacks to straining? Are flavors different when you strain vs not?

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Thanks.

I use a strainer in an attempt to keep the hops out of the fermenter. It removes some of the pellet residue, and does a great job with keeping whole hop cones out of the fermenter.

Secondly, I feel it helps with aeration. I still give the bucket a good shake before adding the yeast.

I think next batch I am just going to rack it to the fermenter.

Nice play by play of your brew....

For your ice water bath, you can just use water in the sink until you get the initial temp drop (after changing the water out a couple of times) then add the ice. The ice melts so fast because you are initially cooling off the pot, so just let the water do that work.

Heckle said:

For your ice water bath, you can just use water in the sink until you get the initial temp drop (after changing the water out a couple of times) then add the ice. The ice melts so fast because you are initially cooling off the pot, so just let the water do that work.

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Good tip!

I used the method of adding ice until it melts for both batches so far, and it is a PITA to tilt the kettle to drain the water in order to free up space to add more ice. Both times I didn't get the stopper back in and the water kept draining out before I realized what was happening.

I used a 22# bag of ice through out the hour cool down.

With first batch, the boil volume was around 3 gallons, and it cooled MUCH faster. With this batch the volume was about 4+ gallons hence the longer cool down.

I have a spare length of copper tube from an old water line in my basement, and am considering using that for a wort chiller.

I put together an immersion using one of the many DIY instructs on the intertubes. I just used a 20' roll of copper tubing (1/2'' OD) from the depot. I have not had any substantial problems with it being shorter than the 25' minimum folks seem to recommended. I just boil up to 5 gal boils so go nuts with the DIY

Also stir the hell out of that pot while it's in the ice bath. It will help to chill faster.

i feel your pain with the ice bath i have my third batch(karankawa pale ale)in a ice bath has we speak!i think i will just go buy a chiller.awsome pics and step by step.

adx said:

Also stir the hell out of that pot while it's in the ice bath. It will help to chill faster.

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Stirring the wort was part of my cooling process for sure. I kept a small bowl of sanitizer close by where I kept my whisk that I used to stir.

david83 said:

awsome pics and step by step.

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Thanks.

I like your username.

Oh, and nice post too!

Great post! Thanks a lot for sharing the step by steps! Hopefully we'll see a new post showing your bottling!