With all the talk of everyone starting to go all-grain, I thought I'd jump on the band wagon myself. On saturday I finished up all the connections on my Cheyco CFC and then got to work on finishing my keggle. I got the weldless bulkhead on friday in the mail, but I still had not cut the top off.
I created a rig very similar to Bobby_M's and went at it. Unfortunately, the lip around the top of the keg I got was bent, so I couldn't move easily all around the top. But after getting most of the way around once, I took the angle grinder off the rig and free handed the rest. I'm happy to say that it came out a little cleaner than BierMuncher's.
Cutting the hole in the side for the bulkhead was more difficult than I thought. I took it into my dad's shop and tried to use the drill press, but I couldn't lock down the keg because it was so big, so it was bouncing a lot and instead of drilling through the keg, it just ripped a hole in it. I went home and cleaned it up with a dremel, it wasn't perfect, but it worked.
So now all the equipment was ready (created a MLT about a month ago when I found a 10gal cooler on sale at HD) and I was ready to brew first thing Sunday.
Oh yeah, and I dropped by my LHBS saturday afternoon and bought the ingredients for Edwort's Haus Pale Ale. It was only $17 and I bought the grains by the lb and hops by the ounce (would be much cheaper if I bought in bulk).
First thing on Sunday morning I pulled the cars out of the garage and the equipment out of the basement. I hit the mash temperature right on at 152 degrees, and after the 60 minutes was up, it ended at 150 degrees, not too bad considering it was in the 30's here in MN.
It only took about a quart until the runnings were clear, so I started to drain into the kettle. I didn't measure my initial volume, but I believe it was somewhere around 6 gallons (after I batch sparged).
Then I started the boil, this was my first full boil and it definitely took a while to get the wort boiling. My first mistake was that I forgot to put my "hop taco" on the pick-up tube in the keggle. I was a little afraid of getting something stuck in the CFC, but I didn't want to dump the hot wort out of the keggle to attach it, so I just continued forward.
After the boil was finished, I hooked up the CFC and a $4 venturi pump to the carboy and prayed that everything would work. The flow out of the kettle stopped twice, but looking back, I think it was because the pump wasn't sucking air, and I encouraged the wort to move through the CFC by blowing into the input of the CFC.
It only took about 10 min to move all the wort through the CFC and the temperature in the carboy was 66 degrees! I was impressed how quickly the temperature dropped in only 20ft of copper (it probably helps that our ground water is in the low 50's this time of year).
I moved the fermenter into my basement and took a gravity reading and it was 1.050, but I only got about 4.5 gallons. I'm not sure if this is because the grain absorbed more water than expected or if too much water evaporated during the boil. Maybe my boil was too aggressive.
I added the yeast (didn't even re-hydrate) and called it a day. This morning I checked on it and there was about 1/2" of krausen, so it's starting to go.
The sample I had when taking the OG was the first time I said "wow, that's good." Typically when I take a sample after taking the OG, I say to myself "it will improve after it ferments." I'm really eager to taste this one when it's finished.
I'm officially addicted, I can't wait to brew again, too bad I'll be out of town the next 2 weekends.
I took some pictures over the weekend too.
Here's the equipment ready to go:
Wort running through CFC into carboy:
Hop sludge left in the kettle:
I just realized I never took a picture of the finished product, maybe I'll get to that tonight.
I created a rig very similar to Bobby_M's and went at it. Unfortunately, the lip around the top of the keg I got was bent, so I couldn't move easily all around the top. But after getting most of the way around once, I took the angle grinder off the rig and free handed the rest. I'm happy to say that it came out a little cleaner than BierMuncher's.
Cutting the hole in the side for the bulkhead was more difficult than I thought. I took it into my dad's shop and tried to use the drill press, but I couldn't lock down the keg because it was so big, so it was bouncing a lot and instead of drilling through the keg, it just ripped a hole in it. I went home and cleaned it up with a dremel, it wasn't perfect, but it worked.
So now all the equipment was ready (created a MLT about a month ago when I found a 10gal cooler on sale at HD) and I was ready to brew first thing Sunday.
Oh yeah, and I dropped by my LHBS saturday afternoon and bought the ingredients for Edwort's Haus Pale Ale. It was only $17 and I bought the grains by the lb and hops by the ounce (would be much cheaper if I bought in bulk).
First thing on Sunday morning I pulled the cars out of the garage and the equipment out of the basement. I hit the mash temperature right on at 152 degrees, and after the 60 minutes was up, it ended at 150 degrees, not too bad considering it was in the 30's here in MN.
It only took about a quart until the runnings were clear, so I started to drain into the kettle. I didn't measure my initial volume, but I believe it was somewhere around 6 gallons (after I batch sparged).
Then I started the boil, this was my first full boil and it definitely took a while to get the wort boiling. My first mistake was that I forgot to put my "hop taco" on the pick-up tube in the keggle. I was a little afraid of getting something stuck in the CFC, but I didn't want to dump the hot wort out of the keggle to attach it, so I just continued forward.
After the boil was finished, I hooked up the CFC and a $4 venturi pump to the carboy and prayed that everything would work. The flow out of the kettle stopped twice, but looking back, I think it was because the pump wasn't sucking air, and I encouraged the wort to move through the CFC by blowing into the input of the CFC.
It only took about 10 min to move all the wort through the CFC and the temperature in the carboy was 66 degrees! I was impressed how quickly the temperature dropped in only 20ft of copper (it probably helps that our ground water is in the low 50's this time of year).
I moved the fermenter into my basement and took a gravity reading and it was 1.050, but I only got about 4.5 gallons. I'm not sure if this is because the grain absorbed more water than expected or if too much water evaporated during the boil. Maybe my boil was too aggressive.
I added the yeast (didn't even re-hydrate) and called it a day. This morning I checked on it and there was about 1/2" of krausen, so it's starting to go.
The sample I had when taking the OG was the first time I said "wow, that's good." Typically when I take a sample after taking the OG, I say to myself "it will improve after it ferments." I'm really eager to taste this one when it's finished.
I'm officially addicted, I can't wait to brew again, too bad I'll be out of town the next 2 weekends.
I took some pictures over the weekend too.
Here's the equipment ready to go:
Wort running through CFC into carboy:
Hop sludge left in the kettle:
I just realized I never took a picture of the finished product, maybe I'll get to that tonight.
