khiddy
Well-Known Member
I awoke this morning with brewing 'pon my mind. I had intended to brew a Hazelnut Brown Ale recipe for a friend, a clone of the Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar. Over the past few weeks I had researched and tweaked some clone recipes found on various sites, with an eye on my grain inventory. I thought I was ready to go, until I went back to my brew room and found that I actually had no 2-Row, and just a bit of 6-Row, to serve as the backbone of the brew.
Fortunately, I had received my most recent order from Brewmasters Warehouse, which had two of my recipes crushed and prebagged, so I grabbed one and started heating up my mash tun. I was brewing an Alt today, instead! Included in a recent order from AHS was a new floating thermometer, which I figured would come in handy in my HLT, so into the pot it went. Of course, midway through the mash, I realized I should make sure that it was calibrated, so I boiled some water and found that the thermometer wasn't quite registering high enough - it never showed a temp higher than about 202*F. Oh well, I thought, I was using my digital thermo for the mash anyhow, so it wasn't going to be a big deal.
The mash went really well, and the boil did as well, so I put the new thermometer into the boil for the last 10 minutes to get it sterilized prior to the cooling stage. At the same time, I read the instructions on the Safale K-97 packet, and learned that I was going to get to use my new Stirplates.com stirplate for the first time! Woo-hoo! After rehydrating the yeast packet, I put it on the stirplate with a nice low spin for 30 minutes per the instructions, while the wort finished cooling to pitching temp.
This is where the wheels came off, almost all at once. The floating thermometer indicated that the wort was in the low 60's, which was a bit lower than I really wanted, so I quickly took the Immersion Chiller out of the pot. The brand-new floating thermometer managed to get caught in the coils of the IC, and came up out of the pot with it... for a moment. It wiggled free as I was trying to grab it, and fell back into the pot with a dull thud. I knew immediately that it had shattered, and indeed it had. The blasted non-calibrated-thing didn't make it through even ONE SINGLE BREW!!!
But wait! There's more! I hadn't lost too many of the beads in the bottom of the thermometer, and I knew I was going to be carefully pouring the wort into the bucket through a strainer, so the lost thermometer wasn't the end of the world. I got the wort into the bucket, leaving most of the hot & cold break behind (hopefully with most of the weight pellets intact). Then I reached for the yeast on the stirplate, and poured it into the brew... all of it... with the magnetic stirbar!
That's my brew day. Not the worst day, but certainly filled with annoyances. It was clear to me that new equipment was the common thread. This new-fangled stuff is going to be the death of me!
Fortunately, I had received my most recent order from Brewmasters Warehouse, which had two of my recipes crushed and prebagged, so I grabbed one and started heating up my mash tun. I was brewing an Alt today, instead! Included in a recent order from AHS was a new floating thermometer, which I figured would come in handy in my HLT, so into the pot it went. Of course, midway through the mash, I realized I should make sure that it was calibrated, so I boiled some water and found that the thermometer wasn't quite registering high enough - it never showed a temp higher than about 202*F. Oh well, I thought, I was using my digital thermo for the mash anyhow, so it wasn't going to be a big deal.
The mash went really well, and the boil did as well, so I put the new thermometer into the boil for the last 10 minutes to get it sterilized prior to the cooling stage. At the same time, I read the instructions on the Safale K-97 packet, and learned that I was going to get to use my new Stirplates.com stirplate for the first time! Woo-hoo! After rehydrating the yeast packet, I put it on the stirplate with a nice low spin for 30 minutes per the instructions, while the wort finished cooling to pitching temp.
This is where the wheels came off, almost all at once. The floating thermometer indicated that the wort was in the low 60's, which was a bit lower than I really wanted, so I quickly took the Immersion Chiller out of the pot. The brand-new floating thermometer managed to get caught in the coils of the IC, and came up out of the pot with it... for a moment. It wiggled free as I was trying to grab it, and fell back into the pot with a dull thud. I knew immediately that it had shattered, and indeed it had. The blasted non-calibrated-thing didn't make it through even ONE SINGLE BREW!!!
But wait! There's more! I hadn't lost too many of the beads in the bottom of the thermometer, and I knew I was going to be carefully pouring the wort into the bucket through a strainer, so the lost thermometer wasn't the end of the world. I got the wort into the bucket, leaving most of the hot & cold break behind (hopefully with most of the weight pellets intact). Then I reached for the yeast on the stirplate, and poured it into the brew... all of it... with the magnetic stirbar!
That's my brew day. Not the worst day, but certainly filled with annoyances. It was clear to me that new equipment was the common thread. This new-fangled stuff is going to be the death of me!
