Brewed up for the first time last night.....and what a drama it was.
I've done loads of reading and brewed several "kits" but it's not until you do you first boil that your discover all the bits you haven't read about!
So did the folowing:
450g British Crystal Malt (Steeped in a saucepan, then sparged with some boiled water)
3.2 KG of Pale LME
450g Dark DME
2oz Northern Brewer 50 mins
1oz Fuggles 20 mins
1oz Fuggles 5 mins
SAFALE yeast
I had so many drama's I'm sure I'm going to have to bin it.
So problems / questions:
1) Lack of hop bags (only had two!) and/ or anything to weight them down with. Does it mater that they floated and that I had to fish the Fugles out to add more?
2) There is a lot of Hop residue in the boiler is this expected?
3) Could I have just bunged them straight in the boil.
4) The big problem....broke my thermometer and I don't have a wort chiller!!! I was told that if I did a 3 gallon boil then adding 2 gallons of cold water would chill it to pitching temp. What a load of rubbish. It was still very hot.....so I poured it into the fermentor anyway and stuck the fermentor in a bath of cold water for about 10 minutes and then pitched. Got up this morning to find the wort as flat as a milpond with no bubbles to be seen. Have I killed the yeast?
5) The other worry was that the steam was condensing on the roof of my garage and occasionally dripping back down so I'm also worried about contamination.
6) The other amusing problems were that I dropped the metal lid of one of the LME's into the boil, and had to spend five very painful minutes fishing it out with long tongs. Oh and my boiler tap now leaks.
Any advice (like "give up homebrewing") gratefully received.
I have now gone out and bought some more yeast in order to repitch....how long should I wait? It's been 14 hours and it looks like flat coke!
Cheers
TB
I've done loads of reading and brewed several "kits" but it's not until you do you first boil that your discover all the bits you haven't read about!
So did the folowing:
450g British Crystal Malt (Steeped in a saucepan, then sparged with some boiled water)
3.2 KG of Pale LME
450g Dark DME
2oz Northern Brewer 50 mins
1oz Fuggles 20 mins
1oz Fuggles 5 mins
SAFALE yeast
I had so many drama's I'm sure I'm going to have to bin it.
So problems / questions:
1) Lack of hop bags (only had two!) and/ or anything to weight them down with. Does it mater that they floated and that I had to fish the Fugles out to add more?
2) There is a lot of Hop residue in the boiler is this expected?
3) Could I have just bunged them straight in the boil.
4) The big problem....broke my thermometer and I don't have a wort chiller!!! I was told that if I did a 3 gallon boil then adding 2 gallons of cold water would chill it to pitching temp. What a load of rubbish. It was still very hot.....so I poured it into the fermentor anyway and stuck the fermentor in a bath of cold water for about 10 minutes and then pitched. Got up this morning to find the wort as flat as a milpond with no bubbles to be seen. Have I killed the yeast?
5) The other worry was that the steam was condensing on the roof of my garage and occasionally dripping back down so I'm also worried about contamination.
6) The other amusing problems were that I dropped the metal lid of one of the LME's into the boil, and had to spend five very painful minutes fishing it out with long tongs. Oh and my boiler tap now leaks.
Any advice (like "give up homebrewing") gratefully received.
I have now gone out and bought some more yeast in order to repitch....how long should I wait? It's been 14 hours and it looks like flat coke!
Cheers
TB