ayrton
Well-Known Member
And I think everything worked out fine. Well...almost everything. I'll get to that.
I woke up yesterday and drove to my LHBS. I picked up the following:
-11 lbs. American 2-row
-1 lb. Crystal
-1/2 lb. Roasted Barley
-White Labs Irish Ale Yeast
-2 oz. Kent Golding hops (1 oz. at 60, 1 oz. at 30)
-1 oz. Fuggles hops (at 5)
-corn sugar
Anyway, I wanted to test my burner before I started, so I went outside and fired it up. It had a dinky little bit of flame coming out - barely enough to heat a single gallon of water to any more than 150 degrees, I'd guess. I hadn't a clue what was wrong; both the tank and the regulator were opened all the way up. I called my uncle-in-law over and he brought his burner, which is identical to mine, and his had nice, huge flames. We got some plumber's tape and put it on my regulator's threads (the ones to the burner) and tried again, and no dice. We fiddle with it for a few more minutes and all of the sudden, WHOOSH! It started working perfectly, and sounded not unlike a jet engine. We let it go out, and since it was *bitter* cold on my porch (in the single digits or lower with the wind chill), I moved the operation to my car port.
Here's the ugly, ugly part of my brew day, and it nearly ruined it for me. I needed to move my car back to make room for the brewing equipment, so I hopped in, threw it in reverse, and then started to back up, and WHAM! My open driver-side door swung open and hit the wooden post that supports the car port roof (and the efficiency apartment above it). I threw it back into 1st and pulled forward enough to get my door un-stuck, and surveyed the damage. The top part of the frame (around the window) is bent out about 1/4 - 1/2 inch, just enough to make it so the door doesn't seal correctly. The door also makes a click sound when I open it because the front of the door rubs a bit against the front panel.
As you can imagine, I was PISSED. I've never had so much as a speeding ticket in my life, and now I !%@&*-ed up my door in a matter of seconds. I swore for about twenty minutes, and then had a few beers to calm my nerves, and then laughed at myself for being a supreme king of dumbasses.
Anyway, it was mash time. I made my calculations and put in my strike water, stirred, and looked at my temperature, and I had hit my 152-degree goal on the nose. I let it sit for an hour with a towel on top, and when I opened it again, it was at about 149. I hope that didn't screw anything up. I emptied it, making sure to recycle the first two runnings. I then heated up some sparge water to 170 and poured that in, and then stirred some more, and then let it sit for 15 minutes, and recycled and emptied again. Woohoo.
Back outside to my burner that required some more fiddling before it got going correctly. I had about 6.25 gallons of wort, and it brought it to a boil in no time. I had a LOT of trouble getting the burner to a temperature that would maintain a boil and not boil over. Part of the problem was that the wind was blowing hard still and stealing a lot of the heat from the top of the wort and also blowing the flame around, which messed up the "center" of the heat and the wort never did that thing where there was a bunch of coagulant and one spot in the kettle where you can actually see the wort. It kept looking like it was going to, but then that spot would move and dissolve anything that was forming. I had two small boil-overs, but since I was outside, no harm came of it and I was back up in running in no time after each of them. It was *really* cold at this point, and the wort steamed so much that it was hard to see it sometimes.
After the boil, everything else went as usual: I cooled it with my chiller, shook the begeezus out of it for a while, pitched, and threw on the airlock. As of now it's bubbling once a second, and the airlock smells fantastic. I can't wait.
It was supposed to be a red ale, but 1/2 lb. of roasted barley is entirely too much for that. It's not stout dark, but it's still darker than it ought to be. So long as it tastes good, though, I'm happy!
I'm going to throw up some pics of my mash tun creation and first AG tonight. If you're *really* bored, check it out! I mean, is the Superbowl really *that* important?
I woke up yesterday and drove to my LHBS. I picked up the following:
-11 lbs. American 2-row
-1 lb. Crystal
-1/2 lb. Roasted Barley
-White Labs Irish Ale Yeast
-2 oz. Kent Golding hops (1 oz. at 60, 1 oz. at 30)
-1 oz. Fuggles hops (at 5)
-corn sugar
Anyway, I wanted to test my burner before I started, so I went outside and fired it up. It had a dinky little bit of flame coming out - barely enough to heat a single gallon of water to any more than 150 degrees, I'd guess. I hadn't a clue what was wrong; both the tank and the regulator were opened all the way up. I called my uncle-in-law over and he brought his burner, which is identical to mine, and his had nice, huge flames. We got some plumber's tape and put it on my regulator's threads (the ones to the burner) and tried again, and no dice. We fiddle with it for a few more minutes and all of the sudden, WHOOSH! It started working perfectly, and sounded not unlike a jet engine. We let it go out, and since it was *bitter* cold on my porch (in the single digits or lower with the wind chill), I moved the operation to my car port.
Here's the ugly, ugly part of my brew day, and it nearly ruined it for me. I needed to move my car back to make room for the brewing equipment, so I hopped in, threw it in reverse, and then started to back up, and WHAM! My open driver-side door swung open and hit the wooden post that supports the car port roof (and the efficiency apartment above it). I threw it back into 1st and pulled forward enough to get my door un-stuck, and surveyed the damage. The top part of the frame (around the window) is bent out about 1/4 - 1/2 inch, just enough to make it so the door doesn't seal correctly. The door also makes a click sound when I open it because the front of the door rubs a bit against the front panel.
As you can imagine, I was PISSED. I've never had so much as a speeding ticket in my life, and now I !%@&*-ed up my door in a matter of seconds. I swore for about twenty minutes, and then had a few beers to calm my nerves, and then laughed at myself for being a supreme king of dumbasses.
Anyway, it was mash time. I made my calculations and put in my strike water, stirred, and looked at my temperature, and I had hit my 152-degree goal on the nose. I let it sit for an hour with a towel on top, and when I opened it again, it was at about 149. I hope that didn't screw anything up. I emptied it, making sure to recycle the first two runnings. I then heated up some sparge water to 170 and poured that in, and then stirred some more, and then let it sit for 15 minutes, and recycled and emptied again. Woohoo.
Back outside to my burner that required some more fiddling before it got going correctly. I had about 6.25 gallons of wort, and it brought it to a boil in no time. I had a LOT of trouble getting the burner to a temperature that would maintain a boil and not boil over. Part of the problem was that the wind was blowing hard still and stealing a lot of the heat from the top of the wort and also blowing the flame around, which messed up the "center" of the heat and the wort never did that thing where there was a bunch of coagulant and one spot in the kettle where you can actually see the wort. It kept looking like it was going to, but then that spot would move and dissolve anything that was forming. I had two small boil-overs, but since I was outside, no harm came of it and I was back up in running in no time after each of them. It was *really* cold at this point, and the wort steamed so much that it was hard to see it sometimes.
After the boil, everything else went as usual: I cooled it with my chiller, shook the begeezus out of it for a while, pitched, and threw on the airlock. As of now it's bubbling once a second, and the airlock smells fantastic. I can't wait.
It was supposed to be a red ale, but 1/2 lb. of roasted barley is entirely too much for that. It's not stout dark, but it's still darker than it ought to be. So long as it tastes good, though, I'm happy!
I'm going to throw up some pics of my mash tun creation and first AG tonight. If you're *really* bored, check it out! I mean, is the Superbowl really *that* important?
