- Joined
- Mar 23, 2018
- Messages
- 290
- Reaction score
- 178
First beer is in the fermenter. I did a second wet run last night to tune the boil for the steam condenser, and found that the lid does not sit flat due to the accessory port. I removed it and re-inserted it backwards (o-ring outside the kettle), and it's better but still not quite right. So I have to carefully tune my boil level, and can't eliminate the steam 100% (probably 98% though).
My brew day today went pretty well, until I got to the second hop addition. It would not advance to the next step (boil for another 15 minutes) no matter what, so I finished the boil and whirlpool by controlling everything manually. Later I found out that because I had used a comma in the description field "Add 35 minute hops, whirlfloc and chiller", it had added a field to the step file, and the software didn't know how to maintain a temperature of "whirlfloc and chiller". So that's corrected for next time.
One annoyance I've found is that there really doesn't seem to be a way to pause, even though there's a button marked "pause/stop brew". When you push it, it asks you if you want to stop the brewing process. If you do nothing or press no, it keeps on trucking. If you push yes, it ends the brew and goes all the way back to the beginning. So you have to manually step through the entire process, resetting timers to zero along the way, in order to get to where you were.
It was messier and longer than I expected, but I'm really excited about the potential results. I need to reduce my starting water next time, as even after extending the boil I still had seven gallons left in the kettle. SG was WAY low--1.046, target of 1.065. I started with 9 gallons, as directed by Brewer's Friend. Will need to trim that by at least a gallon, I think.
My brew day today went pretty well, until I got to the second hop addition. It would not advance to the next step (boil for another 15 minutes) no matter what, so I finished the boil and whirlpool by controlling everything manually. Later I found out that because I had used a comma in the description field "Add 35 minute hops, whirlfloc and chiller", it had added a field to the step file, and the software didn't know how to maintain a temperature of "whirlfloc and chiller". So that's corrected for next time.
One annoyance I've found is that there really doesn't seem to be a way to pause, even though there's a button marked "pause/stop brew". When you push it, it asks you if you want to stop the brewing process. If you do nothing or press no, it keeps on trucking. If you push yes, it ends the brew and goes all the way back to the beginning. So you have to manually step through the entire process, resetting timers to zero along the way, in order to get to where you were.
It was messier and longer than I expected, but I'm really excited about the potential results. I need to reduce my starting water next time, as even after extending the boil I still had seven gallons left in the kettle. SG was WAY low--1.046, target of 1.065. I started with 9 gallons, as directed by Brewer's Friend. Will need to trim that by at least a gallon, I think.