On Friday, I brewed my third batch - Jamil's Harold-Is-Weizen from Brewing Classic Styles. This is the first batch that I created a starter for, a 2L beast using about half a pound of pilsner DME and a tube of WLP300. This was my first full boil and I had a couple minor boilovers but nothing serious.
This is also the first time I got to use my new DIY cooling rig that I constructed from a 50' roll of 3/8" copper tubing from Home Depot, 10' of 3/8" tubing, a female hose fitting with barb, and hose clamps. I rolled a ~35' immersion chiller and a separate 15' pre-chiller but after some testing settled on using the pre-chiller as more of a post chiller to flow immersion-cooled wort through an ice bath to get it to ~60 degrees. Worked great...the immersion chiller took the wort to ~78 degrees in 20 minutes and the post-chiller cooled it to a solid 62 degrees in the time it took to siphon the wort through it into the carboy.
I also invested in a Johnson temperature controller and converted a small chest freezer that was barely used into my new fermentation chamber, holds temperature very nicely which is good because it's really expensive to keep a Tampa home at 62 degrees in July. Here's the brew about 36 hours into fermentation, looks strong and the freezer smells like banana bread. Overall, a great brew day!
Cheers!
This is also the first time I got to use my new DIY cooling rig that I constructed from a 50' roll of 3/8" copper tubing from Home Depot, 10' of 3/8" tubing, a female hose fitting with barb, and hose clamps. I rolled a ~35' immersion chiller and a separate 15' pre-chiller but after some testing settled on using the pre-chiller as more of a post chiller to flow immersion-cooled wort through an ice bath to get it to ~60 degrees. Worked great...the immersion chiller took the wort to ~78 degrees in 20 minutes and the post-chiller cooled it to a solid 62 degrees in the time it took to siphon the wort through it into the carboy.
I also invested in a Johnson temperature controller and converted a small chest freezer that was barely used into my new fermentation chamber, holds temperature very nicely which is good because it's really expensive to keep a Tampa home at 62 degrees in July. Here's the brew about 36 hours into fermentation, looks strong and the freezer smells like banana bread. Overall, a great brew day!
Cheers!