Old Leghumper brew day

CornyKegs 728
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Dude

Dude

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It is always something.

I'm heating sparge water. This is the first time I've used the weldless thermothingy with a real thermometer. The thermometer seems to be picking up heat from the burner, so I'm getting an inaccurate temp reading for my strike water. That means I have to get a step stool to take a manual temp reading from the HLT.

That is the reason I designed this stand, so I didn't have to do semi-dangerous stuff anymore. Back to the drawing board on how to get an accurate temp reading for my strike water. ERRRRRR....

At least the damn thing isn't leaking anymore. That's a plus.
 
If you have a glass therm you could always use rubber bands to attach it to the shaft of your spoon/ladel/spatula (whatever you use for stirring) or a racking-type cane, and let it sit in the pot. Just lift it out when you want to read the temp.:D

Just be careful not to hit the sides of the pot.
 
SCORE!!!!!

My neighbor is moving and just gave me 2 propane tanks!!!! Now I have 3 propane tanks dedicated to brewing. I'll never run out now!!!! :rockin:


Well...it was a minor inconvenience but I'm mashed in 1 degree below target temp. Not too shabby.

Now I have 60-90 minutes to wait, so I'm headed over to Best Buy for the new Tool disc. :rockin:

See ya laters boys!!!!!
 
Figured now is as good as time as any to introduce the new chiller bracket.

Brewpastor is going to hate me.....but I do deserve some Macgyver points for doing what I came up with. :p

Remember the stainless steel cart I bought? It came with a bracket that attached to the cart so you could attach a grill to it. Well, the gears were spinning in my head when I saw that bracket and knew I didn't need it. Well, turns out is is PERFECT for the shirron chiller. Steady, easily removable and it took me a whole 15 minutes to install it. Best part is I had everythign on hand to do it.

bracket1.jpg


The bracket is on a hinge, so I can hand tighten the wing nut right onto the chiller. It holds nicely and is in a perfect position for my chilling needs. Easily removable for cleaning.

bracket2.jpg


Sorry for all of your hard work Brewpastor--but I REALLY appreciate the help, even if I didn't end up using your design. This was cost effective. :p
 
Sure, whatever. -sniff, sniff- Just go ahead and come up with a better idea. I don't care. -sniff, sniff- I will be OK.

Truthfully, that looks like a great set-up. What exactly did you do/use. It looks really simple and straight forward. Very cool. And don't sweat my time. I always am looking for ways to look busy around work. "Just working on the sermon..."
 
Brewpastor said:
Truthfully, that looks like a great set-up. What exactly did you do/use. It looks really simple and straight forward.
Click to expand...

It is just a hinged bracket, with a wingnut that tightens up against the chiller. As soon as I saw it I knew I could use it...my only worry was the stability of it once the chiller was in--no worries. It is solid.

Well....into the boil now. Pre-boil gravity is 1.044, which is about 85% efficiency :)rockin: ). Looks like my FG is going to be slightly higher than planned, which is always a good thing! :)
 
Dude said:
Well....into the boil now. Pre-boil gravity is 1.044, which is about 85% efficiency :)rockin: ). Looks like my FG is going to be slightly higher than planned, which is always a good thing! :)
Click to expand...
Way to go Dude! Boil away!
My Barking Dog brewed yesterday should have been boiled for 100 minutes or more rather than 90. I ended up with about 6 1/2 gallons of wort and 1 point short of my expecyed OG.
 
Dude said:
Looks like my FG is going to be slightly higher than planned, which is always a good thing! :)
Click to expand...

Or you could calculate how much boiling water to add to get to your FG. based on the evaproation rate that you measure during the boil. That's what I do. I may have more wort than fits in my primary but I can always use it for starters or priming.

But gettig a higher than anticipated FG may be a good thing too ;)

Kai
 
Kaiser said:
Or you could calculate how much boiling water to add to get to your FG. based on the evaproation rate that you measure during the boil. That's what I do. I may have more wort than fits in my primary but I can always use it for starters or priming.

But gettig a higher than anticipated FG may be a good thing too ;)

Kai
Click to expand...

Okay...elaborate? How do you calculate how much water to add to get to a certain OG? Why boiling water? If you add water to teh boil pot it will get sanitized anyway, right? Or are you saying you add it at the end of the boil?

Baron von BeeGee said:
Any leghumpin' goin' on yet?
Click to expand...

I was waiting for you to come over. :p
 
May be to late for this batch:

(preboil_SG - 1) * preboil_volume = (postboil_SG - 1) * postboil_volume

using the above equation, you can determine the postboil_volume:

postboil_volume = (preboil_SG - 1) * preboil_volume / (postboil_SG - 1)

Now you know your anticipated postboil_volume. If you also know your boil-off rate, you can determine the actual volume after the boil and add the difference in boiling water. You can also use cold water, but it will stop you boil for a while (but so does inserting the chiller for me ;)) and may cause hot side aeration. You are correct with the sanitation.

If you don't know your boil-off rate you need to determine it. Either at the end of the boil or during the boil by stopping the boil for a moment. If you do it at the end, you may want to add boiled water to be sanitary and avoid hot side aeration.

Kai
 
If I'm going to adjust my batch to gravity (meaning I got higher than expected efficiency), I just add enough top off water in the fermentor to hit the target FG which has the added benefit of adding some oxygen as well as slight cooling. Promash has a dilution calculator which, given a current gravity reading and a target gravity, will tell you how much straight water to add.
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
If I'm going to adjust my batch to gravity (meaning I got higher than expected efficiency), I just add enough top off water in the fermentor to hit the target FG which has the added benefit of adding some oxygen as well as slight cooling. Promash has a dilution calculator which, given a current gravity reading and a target gravity, will tell you how much straight water to add.
Click to expand...

yep..that is exactly how I do it.

Kai--thanks for the formula. I think I'm going to add that into my brew spreadsheet.
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
If I'm going to adjust my batch to gravity (meaning I got higher than expected efficiency), I just add enough top off water in the fermentor to hit the target FG which has the added benefit of adding some oxygen as well as slight cooling. Promash has a dilution calculator which, given a current gravity reading and a target gravity, will tell you how much straight water to add.
Click to expand...

This is another good way of doing it. I make the adjstments to the wort in the kettle since I don't want to have the problem of needing to top-off more than fits in my 5gal primary carboy.

Kai
 
Well...I'll attach this part to this thread because racking/maintenance is part of the brew day sometimes....

I am using the slurry from teh Pub Ale batch, so I just racked it out of the carboy into a keg. I took a gravity sample--1.012. Pretty damn good. then the taste. I actually laughed out loud when I sampled it. The smell is spot on to Boddingtons. Mine isn't as bitter and it is darker--which is good because I wasn't going for a typical Boddingtons "clone", I wanted my own recipe.

I just thought it was funny. When we got home from buying the car last night a Boddingtons sounded good so I poured a pint from one of those widget cans--and when I smelled/tasted mine today it hit me as almost the exact "smell". I found it very interesting.

Overall it is a boring beer but I like it so far. It is what I was shooting for.
 
Dude said:
Overall it is a boring beer but I like it so far. It is what I was shooting for.
Click to expand...

Yes, because we all know that when you set your expectations very low, you will rarely be disappointed. ;)

-walker
 
Does anyone else get really jealous of Dude while sitting, hard at work (or reading homebrewtalk), while he's at home brewing away, 3 days a week it seems like. You know, I considered going to UC Davis and doing fermentation studies instead of somewhere for cell/molecular biology just because then it just might be my job to brew.
 
clayof2day said:
Does anyone else get really jealous of Dude while sitting, hard at work (or reading homebrewtalk), while he's at home brewing away, 3 days a week it seems like. You know, I considered going to UC Davis and doing fermentation studies instead of somewhere for cell/molecular biology just because then it just might be my job to brew.
Click to expand...
Sometimes I do, but I think his overall hours worked are similar or more to most of us, so I deal with it. Still, on days like today I could kick him in the codsack as I sit in my cube.
 
clayof2day said:
Does anyone else get really jealous of Dude while sitting, hard at work (or reading homebrewtalk), while he's at home brewing away, 3 days a week it seems like. You know, I considered going to UC Davis and doing fermentation studies instead of somewhere for cell/molecular biology just because then it just might be my job to brew.
Click to expand...

Baron von BeeGee said:
Sometimes I do, but I think his overall hours worked are similar or more to most of us, so I deal with it. Still, on days like today I could kick him in the codsack as I sit in my cube.
Click to expand...

No need to be jealous. I work rotating shifts so I'm actually jealous of you guys who have weekends off. It is a crapshoot every month. In April I worked every single day of every weekend. Sucks with a family life.

I probably only work 30-35 hours a week, but changing from nights to days and back again--it sucks. I'd kill for a regular M-F shift.

I do enjoy chilling during the week when everyone else is at work though, so there are some advantages.



Well, Old Leghumper (the name will change) is all chilled and racked right onto the WLP005 ( I think I got htat wrong in another thread) slurry. Gravity was through the roof, 1.065. I even ended up with almost 6 gallons of wort too, so I can barely top this off. I plan on adding some water though, that is way too high for this beer.

I cannot believe I got 85%+ efficiency on this.
 
Dude said:
I probably only work 30-35 hours a week, but changing from nights to days and back again--it sucks. I'd kill for a regular M-F shift.
Click to expand...

I'm in my office for 40+ hours a week, but I probably only work about 10 of them.
 
Cheesefood said:
I'm in my office for 40+ hours a week, but I probably only work about 10 of them.
Click to expand...

yeah, I'll bet I actually "work" 10 hours a week too. The rest is surfing brewing forums and jeep forums. :ban:

I actually like it when I have work because the time goes faster, but we are pretty slow for work right now.
 
Dude said:
yeah, I'll bet I actually "work" 10 hours a week too. The rest is surfing brewing forums and jeep forums. :ban:

I actually like it when I have work because the time goes faster, but we are pretty slow for work right now.
Click to expand...
I have a completely tedious job and I spend as much time as possible surfing the internet and streaming ESPN radio all day. I guess I actually work 25-30 hours per week which I guess means I am a workaholic compared to you bums!!!! :cross:
 
Forgot to mention 2 things about yesterday.

That grill/brew cart I bought? Best 80 bucks I've ever spent. I didn't realize how convenient it is to have a sink right near the brewing area. It came in really handy. Not to mention all the storage.

Next--I don't think I'm ever trading hops with anyone again, unless I know they are fresh. I traded some varieties with someone on another board, and I got screwed over. When I got them, I noticed they looked kind of yellow.
I planned to use some of them in Old Leghumper yesterday. I opened up the package and they smelled like cheese. Not kidding. I ended up substituting them with something else at the last minute. The whole lot (12 ounces) that we traded, are that same color. I'm pretty pissed.
 
Dude, how were the hops packaged? Had they allegedly been stored in the freezer? Maybe you can make a lambic ;)

I've got all mine vac-sealed and frozen now, and so far they're holding up really well.
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
Dude, how were the hops packaged? Had they allegedly been stored in the freezer? Maybe you can make a lambic ;)

I've got all mine vac-sealed and frozen now, and so far they're holding up really well.
Click to expand...

They were all vacuum sealed and he said they were stored frozen. But even if hops are stored sealed and frozen like that, shelf life isn't much more than a year.
 
Dude said:
They were all vacuum sealed and he said they were stored frozen. But even if hops are stored sealed and frozen like that, shelf life isn't much more than a year.
Click to expand...
Agreed. But if I were doing a trade now, I would have expected hops from the 2005 crop, not 2004...:mad:
 
Dude said:
Next--I don't think I'm ever trading hops with anyone again, unless I know they are fresh. I traded some varieties with someone on another board, and I got screwed over. When I got them, I noticed they looked kind of yellow.
I planned to use some of them in Old Leghumper yesterday. I opened up the package and they smelled like cheese. Not kidding. I ended up substituting them with something else at the last minute. The whole lot (12 ounces) that we traded, are that same color. I'm pretty pissed.
Click to expand...
What type of hops are they? I guess some store better than others.
 
Dude said:
These were Mt. Hood. The Chinook he sent me have the same yellowish tint.
Click to expand...
I guess the fact that they smell like cheese says it all. I got some ECG from Hops Direct and they look much browner than the Northern Brewer and Cascades I also received from them. The ECG smell fresh and have produced good beers so I haven't worried abouty it too much. (I found out after the fact that ECG do not store well :( )I was thinking that mayby it's normal for different types of hops to look different but if they smell bad it doesn't matter what they look like.
 
If they smell like cheese, then I'd guess they are either 2 years old, or left on top of the fridge for a while... Put them in your attic for a year or so and make a lambic for sure... if ya don't make lambic, send them to me and I'll do it! ;)

mikey
 
I have some hops in plastic zip lock bags sitting in my freezer. They should stay good for a while, right?
 

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