How was your brew-day this weekend? (10/26-10/28)

So how did your brew day go? I'll post some highlights of mine.

I brewed with Rdwj and it was a comedy of errors for both of us. We started 4 hours later than we originally wanted to, because i had to get some morning chores done.

So, he's brewing a Hobgoblin and I'm brewing VCCA3. Let's review the errors:

I'll preface it by starting with how I forgot to bring the beers I'd bottled the previous night.

1. Stupid me, I mixed up the grain buckets and mashed his grains. We noticed this right as he was about to mash mine.

2. Rdwj boiled first and brought out the spray bottle for boil overs. It helped keep down his boil overs. Since I was brewing with wheat, I knew I'd need it too. After a few squirts, I noticed a sour smell. Finally I opened up the bottle, and it smelled like vinegar. Rdwj tasted it and...guess what? We've been spraying down our beer with vinegar.

3. Adding hops - I'd also forgotten my Lil Sparky Hop Sock and I don't have a hopstopper. In fact, I'd brought a copper scrubby (a'la Orfy) and forgot to put it on. <gay joke opportunity>So there was a whole lot of blowing by both Rod and I to get my wort flowing</gay joke opportunity>.

4. Got all my wort collected and ended up with only about 4 gallons. Had to top off.

5. For the second time in a row brewing with Rod, he'd left his ball valve open on his primary. Wort on the basement floor.

6. After packing up, I'd left some stuff at his place and had to turn around to get it.

We had some good laughs. It's just not a brew day if it goes smoothly! I pitched some 1056 slurry when I got home last night and it's just now starting to show activity.

How were your brew days?

Yours was better than mine.

Spend all day Saturday muding and taping the 2nd bedroom, along with scraping off the popcorn ceiling texture. With a razor blade (cleanest way of getting it down).

Spend all morning today in the office. Spent all afternoon doing the Daddy thing while wifey went to HER office.

On the positive side, Cassie and I stopped at the packie on the way back from the grocery store, and I picked up a couple bottles of 11th Anniversary... :rockin: :rockin:

Oh, and the Pats won 52-7, and the Sox are about to close up the Series. All in all, a good weekend!

Prior to brewing, I moved a 57" rear projection TV (with some help). F'd up the bottom side of it (not too bad, but...). Then I helped Rdwj move around his 10 gallon batch and my 5 gallon batch. My back isn't feeling great today.

On the other hand, I'm going to be an uncle again soon! My sister is "in labor" so it could be any minute, hour, or day before she has Kid 2.

I had a very good brew day, just hope I beat the infections.

Uhh man I'm beat!

It went ok, like you said though it's not a brewday if it goes flawlessly.

I brewed my first IPA, missed my mash temps (too low) and had to add water. Honestly though I think my thermometor is off so I trashed it... F it.

Nothing really went WRONG but I got my first SWMBO anti-brewing rant. Basicly she was pissed bc I "wasn't there"....even though I'm just in the backyard...we fought but it turned out fine...just annoying.

I think I'm going to try the overnight mash next time so I can brew when she's gone.

Anyway, low mash temps, long boil bc to much wort, 6oz of hops and a yeast slury later I'm bubblin' right along.

the_bird said:

Yours was better than mine.

Spend all day Saturday muding and taping the 2nd bedroom, along with scraping off the popcorn ceiling texture. With a razor blade (cleanest way of getting it down).

Spend all morning today in the office. Spent all afternoon doing the Daddy thing while wifey went to HER office.

On the positive side, Cassie and I stopped at the packie on the way back from the grocery store, and I picked up a couple bottles of 11th Anniversary... :rockin: :rockin:

Oh, and the Pats won 52-7, and the Sox are about to close up the Series. All in all, a good weekend!

Click to expand...

It has been a miracle week in Boston sports....:rockin:

Brewed a wheat beer last night even though i had a feeling something may go wrong, and it did.

1. My nice digital thermometer (the yellow nist traceble waterproof one) crapped out on me. Was reading a 170*F in 55* weather.

2. Forced to use a floating thermometer i have never used before. The F side uses only two digits after a hundred, easy enough. Ended up using the the C side i couldnt figure out how my once 168 strike water was still at 168 after dough in. Added some cold water but could only get it down to 158 before i decided to give up. Only to realize later i was reading the wrong side and stupid me hit dead on mash temps with 68 CELSIUS!

3. After Mashing in i needed to move my burner and propane tank, and man did that tank feel light (maybe i was getting a little bit stronger). Needless to say it got me through half hour of boil and died.

4. Number three left me draggin 6 or so gallons of boiling wort from outside into the kitchen to see what i could do with that. I tried to get it back to boiling on a elctric stove but my 11 gal pot was too big to make conctact with the burner. I then transfrered half of it into my 4 gallon pot which also too big to make conctact with the burner. So for the next half hour i had to stand over the stove tilting the kettles to get one side in contact with the stove and got somewhat of a boil. i was sweating like a bastard.

5. measured out my hops- used a once Oz bag of hops to calibrate my scale, then measured the next two additions and put them in small glass bowls. Left for a while and came back to realize; damn all three look similiar but two of them were tettnager. I assumed the ones that tasted most like cascades were the cascades (i hope).

6. Oh and i couldnt Figure out why my barley crusher wouldnt crush the grains ( wrong way stupid)

7. Missed my OG by ten points, oh well, and im not sure what kind of fermentables i created in the mash so well see how it ferments. I used the new dry wheat yeast and was going like crazy this morning but slowed down this afternoon.

8. Aerated by shaking my fermenter with teh hydrometer still in it (luckily this didn't end up in a broken hydrometer but could have been bad).

I hope this beer ends up okay and ill chaulk it up as a couple "dont do these things again" (espically the propane). I reaaly wanted this beer to be good too because i have two batches in secondaries that have a awful aftertaste that i contribute to my bad well water (im still going to give them a few more weeks to see if the metalic/basment-y taste goes away). Any one else ahve one of those waterproof digital thermometers stop working? thats what aggrivates me the most. I still had fun, kinda like playing golf- it wouldnt be as fun if you couldn't strive for perfection.

Brewed up a batch based on BierMuncher's newcastle recipe. First batch with the barley crusher (previously using a corona mill), everything went fine through the mash and boil but by the end of the boil a LOT had boiled off, because it was really windy out today I presume. Ended up a full gallon short. Correcting for volume, it looks like my efficiency was barely 70% - not terrible but not the "miracle" jump in efficiency I had hoped for. Guess the mill wasn't my biggest limiting factor in efficiency - gotta review my techniques I guess.

Also thanks to the wind, the burner put a ton of soot on the bottom of the brew pot, so I made a nice mess of my pants while carrying it, and some towels and the bathtub while chilling and cleaning it.

And, I wanted to try the whirlpool method I'd heard so much about, but (as I so often do) I forgot to throw in a whirlfloc tab or irish moss, so my cold break didn't exactly stick together too well, plus in the process of getting the siphon in there and everything I stirred it up enough to pretty much kill any benefit the whirlpooling may have given.

On the plus side, the Scottish 70/- that I kegged today tastes GREAT based on the hydrometer sample from today, can't wait to tap it.

Purty good.

5 gallon (mini) batch of oatmeal stout with 15% flaked oats. Slow...but not stuck sparge.

Total brew time...3 hours 54 minutes from flame on to last item cleaned and stored...

Oh yeah, forgot to add...

Don't put your autosiphon in 180* water....gotta buy a new one bc it warped

It was gearing up as my best, quickest, and most efficient (in all sense of the word) brew day yet.

I hit 77-78% efficiency on my first complete AG (have been mashing 10 lbs grains and adding extract because I had bigger OGs where the necessary grain wouldn't fit in my 5 gal rubbermaid).

I was hittin' up chat, and sampling some good beers I had gotten at the store.

Then, comes chillin' time: On Thursday night, I tried the method of pumping boiling liquid (used water for a test) through an immersion chiller submerged into an ice bath directly into the fermentor. Worked like a charm: boiling water in, 60* water out...however, it melted my autosiphon.

So I ran to HD on Friday and got the T-barb that Flyguy has posted about to use Friday night. Screw the autosiphon, this was gonna be fine.

Nope, couldn't get a strong enough siphon started, it even slipped out at one point and I lost about a 3/4 gallon wort to the floor/walls. Bollocks.

So I scrapped that plan, sanitized my IC (at least I think I did), and chilled the old fashioned method. Pitched fine, activity in 24 hours, and bubbling away steadily.

You live, you learn. Getting a Shirron and March Pump for Xmas.

I'm going to try the ole march-pump and imersion chiller method put forth by Jamil.

Just need a march pump...

Hit 81% efficiency on my Milk Stout today , just waiting for the fermentation to take off. Also bottled a batch of Apfelwein.

BierMuncher said:

I'm going to try the ole march-pump and imersion chiller method put forth by Jamil.

Just need a march pump...

Click to expand...

March Pump CFC is super efficient.

Hit about 70% efficiency, but other than that, was easily my smoothest brew day ever. No boil overs, new ball-lock valve on the MLT, smoooooooth wort collection. Wound up with 2/3 gallon more than I was shooting for, so the OG was a bit low, but still gonna be a tasty beer. 4 hours 45 minutes from heating up the strike water to finishing cleanup. Was my quickest brew as well. Oh, got a corded drill as well, so crushing my grains takes about 1/4 the time it used to.

I'm still having issues getting my electric stove to do partial boils. At this point, I've realized it just can't handle even that volume. I've done late additions on my last two batches and it still hasn't helped much.

Had a small logistical dilemma when trying to figure out how to fill a rubbermaid tub with water. I could either carry it upstairs to the tub, fill it and haul it downstairs.(absolute last option). I could try to fill it outside and attempt to carry it to the brew closet. (Same level but still a decent distance with all that water). I even considered filling up gallon jugs and dumping them in one by one. Finally it dawned on me. Fill the sink with water, keep the water running and siphon it into the tub. Bingo! It's a lot easier to slide it than lift and carry it.

I almost forgot to add the remaining LME to the boil. I put a partial amount in a the beginning.

No major issues this weekend with mine, but still have a few things to work out.

BierMuncher said:

I'm going to try the ole march-pump and imersion chiller method put forth by Jamil.

Just need a march pump...

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm actually thinking about this before I actually ask for the Shirron. I dunno, though.

I had a cool brew day. Did a 10 gal AG batch of EdWort's Haus Pale Ale, 5 gal PM of DunkelWeizen, and 5 gal PM Doppel Bock.

I had 5 guys and their families over. One of the guys was the extract/PM guy but he hadn't brewed in a long time. He showed up late and a little unprepared/scatter brained. Ended up using a hodgepodge of equipment to get all 3 batches done, but we ended up with 20 gallons in the fermenters when it was all said and done.

We also grilled some AWESOME kabobs and had a nice feast to wrap up the day. I'm uploading some pictures to my website. I'll post some pics in the morning. I'm beat, so I'm going to bed now.

Cheers

Edit: I posted a thread with some good pics here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=43061

Had a two-day brew day trifecta Thursday and Friday. I took a couple of days off from a major project and had planned to bottle my first batch, rack the second batch to the 2ndary and start my third (and first AG) batch in the same day. About 2:00 on Thursday I realized that was f'ing insane. There was no way to get it all done before having to switch back to husband/dad mode, so I broke it up.

Day 1:
Brought carboy of Apex Amber in from the 2nd fridge to settle and come up to room temp for bottling. Still dark out.

Hauled out the AG stuff. As you can see, both cats were very interested in the brewing process.

Using the dishwasher as a drying rack and the door as the bottling platform was a brilliant tip I picked up here. Any splashes or overflows run right into the dishwasher and out the drain. Nice. You can see the empty carboy filled with PBW off to the left.

Racked my cream ale/koelsch into the carboy for a couple of weeks of cleanup at fridge temps. I think John Palmer would be proud to see his book used as a racking aid.

Chad

Day 2:
Got my AG stuff together and hit the big time with Apex Amber v2.0. Thanks to thorough planning and a detailed checklist it went remarkably well. I made a couple of rookie errors, but nothing soul crushing. I didn't account well enough for grain absorption so ran 1/2 gallon short of hot sparge water. I didn't cool the samples of 1st, 2nd and 3rd running when checking gravity, so was trying to get gravity readings at 100+ degrees -- that sort of thing. On the plus side, I hit my mash temp and target OG perfectly and somehow managed 75% efficiency.

The new 8 gallon pot is a little small, but about as big as my kitchen stove can handle at the moment. . Only really threatened to boil over once, but that quickly passed.

Pitched my yeast -- the slurry from a 2L starter -- at 1:00pm and had the first tentative bubbles by 5:00pm. Not bad.

I am also now a wort chiller convert and evangelist. Damn! My wort was amazingly clear going into the fermenter. I had no idea how much crud would drop out with proper chilling.

Saturday I toured the Carolina Brewing Company with Boston, Professor Frink & B.R. Loomis and wife. A good weekend for beer.

Chad

It seems a few of us had bad frustrating brew days.

Today was my first all-grain. Firstly, i planned on making a stirplate this weekend to get a killer starter for my first AG... Stirplate plans failed.

Then, I was going to buy an immersion wort chiller. My LHBS "always" has them on hand. He's sold 4 all year and keeps 4 in stock at all times. Except, it seems, this week he sold 4 work chillers since Monday, so was out of stock on Saturday when I went to buy one. The HBSes within a 1.5 hour drive all were out as well (as far as I know) and one actually stopped making them at all since people complained about the prices with copper being so expensive.

Hitting the right mash temps was tough since it was my first time needed into pay attention to them, but I think I got them okay. After I added my sparge water my MLT started coming apart. The neoprene washers actually popped off, the stainless braid came off and since it was just the nozzle it clogged. Ended up scooping the grains out and whirling around to get the lauter going.

Once everything got boiling, things went GREAT. SWMBO sat there with me and was a lot of fun.

The traditional Greman Bock went well.

Doughed in at 4:50 AM overshot the protien rest by 2-3 degrees. No big deal. Sitrred the mash like crazy and was able to get the temp to drop 2 degrees.

Steam mashed all the other temps dead on and collected 15 gallons of wort after a 45-50 minute sparge.

No boilovers!

Finished at 11 AM and ended up with an O.G. at 1.068........88% efficiency! :rockin:

Pitched the huge starter and saw fermentation in 4 hours. Beer is now resting comfotably and fermenting away at 50 degrees.

I brewed another Guinness Clone. :rockin:

Nothing bad to report...

I like reading about other people's (bad) brewing experiences, but nothing ever goes wrong when I brew...hmmm...I wonder why?

Cheesefood said:

So how did your brew day go? I'll post some highlights of mine.

I brewed with Rdwj and it was a comedy of errors for both of us. We started 4 hours later than we originally wanted to, because i had to get some morning chores done.

So, he's brewing a Hobgoblin and I'm brewing VCCA3. Let's review the errors:

I'll preface it by starting with how I forgot to bring the beers I'd bottled the previous night.

1. Stupid me, I mixed up the grain buckets and mashed his grains. We noticed this right as he was about to mash mine.

2. Rdwj boiled first and brought out the spray bottle for boil overs. It helped keep down his boil overs. Since I was brewing with wheat, I knew I'd need it too. After a few squirts, I noticed a sour smell. Finally I opened up the bottle, and it smelled like vinegar. Rdwj tasted it and...guess what? We've been spraying down our beer with vinegar.

3. Adding hops - I'd also forgotten my Lil Sparky Hop Sock and I don't have a hopstopper. In fact, I'd brought a copper scrubby (a'la Orfy) and forgot to put it on. <gay joke opportunity>So there was a whole lot of blowing by both Rod and I to get my wort flowing</gay joke opportunity>.

4. Got all my wort collected and ended up with only about 4 gallons. Had to top off.

5. For the second time in a row brewing with Rod, he'd left his ball valve open on his primary. Wort on the basement floor.

6. After packing up, I'd left some stuff at his place and had to turn around to get it.

We had some good laughs. It's just not a brew day if it goes smoothly! I pitched some 1056 slurry when I got home last night and it's just now starting to show activity.

How were your brew days?

Click to expand...

7. Forgot to Aerate wort.

Thankfully, everything smells great and seems to be progressing normally.

Still, a fun brew day and much less painfull that the last time I brewed with Cheese and burned my foot with hot wort.

rdwj said:

7. Forgot to Aerate wort.

Thankfully, everything smells great and seems to be progressing normally.

Still, a fun brew day and much less painfull that the last time I brewed with Cheese and burned my foot with hot wort.

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I didn't aerate, only because I had a 40 minute ride home in a Wrangler. Just this morning I was wondering whether or not you aerated.

As for the hotfoot, who brews in sandals, hippy?

Cheesefood said:

I didn't aerate, only because I had a 40 minute ride home in a Wrangler. Just this morning I was wondering whether or not you aerated.

As for the hotfoot, who brews in sandals, hippy?

Click to expand...

I ended up doing it the next day. I'm hoping better late than never. In summer, I rarely wear shoes EVER. I bring the sandals along in the car for those places that won't let you in barefoot.

rdwj said:

I ended up doing it the next day. I'm hoping better late than never. In summer, I rarely wear shoes EVER. I bring the sandals along in the car for those places that won't let you in barefoot.

Click to expand...

It's supposedly most effective if you aerate the next day.

Cheesefood said:

It's supposedly most effective if you aerate the next day.

Click to expand...

From what I've heard, it all depends. If you've pitched enough yeast where there doesn't need to be much yeast growth, you shouldn't aerate after fermenation has begun. If you underpitched, it should be fine to aerate afterwards. What you don't want to do, if I understand it correctly, is to aerate after the yeasts' reproductive phase is over.

Took a gravity reading on my Barleywine (1.098->1.010) and transfered to the secondary for it's aging. This one is going to be fantastic once it matures.

Brewed 5.5 gals of Kolsch. Decided to make a modification to my process by including a mash out after the sac rest and wound up with a slightly lower efficiency.

Tough weekend. Hefe keg blew, so I cleaned it and racked the AHC batch of Apfelwein (5/15/07) to the clean and sanitized keg. I then cleaned the Better Bottle and made another batch of Apfelwein.

I need to keg my Apfelwein batches quicker. I asked SWMBO to pick up some juice and must have got confused with 5 two-packs (10 gallons) cause she picked up 5 boxes for 20 gallons. Whoo Yaaa.

Now it's out of town for the week, but time enough to get back for Teach A Friend to Homebrew weekend.

Brewed Friday night. Knocked off work a little early and walked out the the garage with my 4 yo in tow. He helped me get the grains crushed. Mash went fine. Not sure what happened between the begining of the boil and the end.

Starting gravity after the mash was spot on, but gravity after the boil was the same. WTF? I can only guess that I took the reading wrong. I've started using a refractometer for all of my readings and either it got out of whack (the 4 yo was playing with it), or one of my samples was not mixed well.

Second problem came at the end of the boil, but I didn't realize it until everything was in the fermenter. Forgot to add the whirfloc. Oh well, it'll probably be a cloudy. So, I'll have a slightly weaker, cloudy beer in the keg when its all done.

Third problem came when it was time to pitch. I had the batch broken up into two bucket fermenters and pitched a quart of slurry that was saved. Only problem was I pitched 80% of it into one and the other 20% into the other. Oops. Also forgot to aerate.

Checked on it Saturday morning and the bucket that got most of the yeast was going like crazy. The other bucket, nada damn thing. Opened it up, hit with some O2 and added a packet of Safale in. Was up and going later that day.

Was going to brew again on Sunday, but it didn't work out. Everything is measured out and ready to go, so maybe I'll knock it out one night this week. Maybe tonight.

I did good this w/e, except for I got into my first batch of JAOM only 22 hours after I had pitched it. It was really good, didn't stop at one glass. I have a wee headache Monday AM, and about half the original batch still bubbling under the airlock.