Brew Day 4-9-11

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Snafu

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Richmond, VA
Already got my starter going, its on the stirplate doing its thing. Tonight I'll put all the plumbing together and get most of it set up for tomorrow. Also need to weigh and sort all the hops. Doing BM's Outer Limits IPA. 30% chance of rain, trying to decide to do this one indoors or not. Cya in the morning!!
 
Doing the same thing myself. I mean brewing, not an IPA though. Doing my first ever Pilsner. Im over on the Eastern Shore and have the same chance of rain. I just leave the garage door open and brew in there myself. Starting early I think, around 8. Good luck. Cheers!
 
Forgot to mention this is my first AG batch ever. Any recommendations on what I should do tonight to prepare? Also, when doing my partials I always lost a lot of temp with my tun. Its a 10 gallon circular cooler. I covered it with blankets and what not but still lost temp big time. Any thoughts?
 
In the winter (i brew out in my shed) I would drop 6-7 deg, but once it gets to around 60 outside, I really don't drop more than 4-5 deg over an hour. I'm just using a 10 gal rubbermaid cooler, I did drop more with the Igloo brand, and the Igloo warped on the inside big time also, thats why I have a rubbermaid now. It split wide open on the inside :rockin: I've had no problems with the 5 gal igloo, go figure
 
Doing the same thing myself. I mean brewing, not an IPA though. Doing my first ever Pilsner. Im over on the Eastern Shore and have the same chance of rain. I just leave the garage door open and brew in there myself. Starting early I think, around 8. Good luck. Cheers!

Yeah, I could brew it up in the man cave (shed), but I'm sooooo ready for warmer weather I just can't wait to brew it up on the back deck. Its just so much nicer. Of course, 60 isn't all that warm....lol I guess I'm staying in the shed. :mad:
 
Im going to run by Ace in 20 mins and get that spray foam, thanks. My cooler is a home depot generic I guess. But its the same design as the one you describe. I think another reason was because I wasnt warmer the cooler forst with hot water. I was just pouring and and letting it go. Maybe the fact that it was a partial mash and I was using that 10 gallon cooler had something to do with also. Lots of air space. No mater what, Im excited about tomorrow. Now I just have to make sure I have plenty of propane.
 
Sunday is looking nice but since we have a 2 week old baby I think the wife will want to get out of the house. SO I will use the rainy day to make my brew. Monday is looking really nice over here. About 80 or so and sunny last I heard. Its about time.
 
The brew shed vs Deck

mancave2.jpg


setup3.jpg


setup.jpg
 
I didn't see anyone else mention it but I recommend preheating the MLT. I use about 5 gallons at 150 for a half hour before mashing in then drain that back into my kettle and reheat a bit to my strike temp. then add it back to the MLT (I like to do the water first because my cooler is graduated and that's what I use for my strike volume) and the in with the grains. I've found that preheating really helps maintain that temp--I'm sure your insulation will help even more. Good luck!
 
Appreciate the responses. Snafu, looks like you have some great setups. Looking like rain tomorrow. Thanks Krazy, I think I'm going to do the same.
 
Slept in, but we're up and running. Heating water and crushing grains now. *chilipeppers playin*

Anyone want pics as I go?
 
mash is underway, pH reading was low, real low. so I checked against some buffer I had here and was way off, just waiting for new sample to cool off more to retest, tossed in a gram of baking soda just in case...lol
 
thanks black forest! that was 2 years ago, we done some upgrades since than...

pH issue corrected, its now 5.28, still a little low but workable. *sublime playin*

heating up mashout water
 
started the fly sparge, about 40 mins to go. Getting all the hops laid out for the 75 min boil. SHMBO must have messed with my ipod, B-52's playin
 
adding the sight glasses to the mash tun & HLT sure have made fly sparging so much easier, I just put a small piece of tape where I wanted to keep the water level and just adjust the flow in by watching the glass. No more lifting lids every few mins to look at the levels. No more letting out heat either!
 
Ok, pre-boil was est. at .058 and came in at .052 thats 80% efficiency :rockin: (so far) ;)
 
JEE-ZUSSS

the shear # of things that went wrong right there at the end is astounding!
1) propane tank ran out during the boil ( no worries, I had 2 spares)
2) because I ended up swapping out tanks, boil picked up big time, cause issue #3
3) new hop spider got soft from the heat of the boil. Ayup, fell into the kettle.
4) sprung a small leak while using the immersion chiller, tightened, no worries (see issue #5)
5) dropped wrench into boil kettle.

I'll keep you posted, still chillin :drunk:
 
Man! Sorry to hear you had a few things go wrong. For issue number 5, where's "The Claw" when you need one?

If you happen to turn that shed of yours into an official brewing area, I'd love to see that process in a thread.
 
Well its a 12X20, SHMBO made me buy it cause she just had the kitchen redone and didn't want me to "ruin" it with my brewing. I'm not sure how I'm going to set it up yet, I'm thinking a countertop type brutis 10. So I can still move it.to the deck on sunny days. I just need one more blickmann burner and kettle, and 2 March pumps. Its a work in progress.
 
All done. Its in the fermentation chamber at 68 and I've already poured the starter. Final #'s were 1.076 and was shooting for 1.081 the hop spider issue wasn't too bad, just opened the valve and let the first quart or so dump out. After that it ran pretty clear untilled the very end. Ended up with 5.25 gals and was shooting for 5.5gals. All in all should be just fine, no matter what, its still beer.
 
Thanks for posting the process/progress! Do you have a brewday playlist on your ipod? I need to get one sorted for next Saturday when we brew!
Funny how things always seem to go wrong, no matter how well you plan. Just the nature of the beast!
 
Thanks for posting all that. The pics were great as well. You have a nice setup going there. My first AG went eerily well. No major incidents. Just the usual boil over. Nailed my target OG. Its a Pilsner by the way. Took me about 6.5 hours from beginning to end. Popped it in the fridge. Brought the temp down to 55 and with12 hours it was fermenting well. Here is a pretty generic blog I started. I’m not computer expert for sure. http://atomicdonkeybrewing.blogspot.com/
 
Congrats on the first AG, my first one went pretty good also, although I was a nervous wreck, I went over each step 1000 times in my head and was way over stressed. Its gotten much easier now, even when I have as many "Snafu's" as I did this last brew, it will still turn out good. RDWAHAHB
 
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