Well I finally got off my rear and brewed my first beer.
I have had a kegerator for about a year now and have been collecting home brew equipment over the last year while drinking commercial beer from the fridge. I picked up a starter home brew kit and beer kit from Midwest last month as they had a Living Social Deal and it was pretty darn cheap. That kit came with a Red Ale and dry yeast. Since the yeast will keep, I am going to save that one for the next batch. Then I ordered a Amber Ale with Wyeast so I can try both methods of preparing and pitching yeast to see which I like best.
I didn't think I had a viable kettle but I have a couple Turkey Burner kits with AL pots. Then I was reading about seasoning the AL pots by a 1hr boil of water. They are new. Well I used one to steam some sweet corn a couple times this summer but other than that unused. I still plan on going Stainless eventually but, little at a time. I bought a new 5gal Corney Ball Lock and just completed converting my kegerator so I can go with either ball locks or commercial couplers. I got looking at my schedule and realized that it would be best to brew this past weekend with the holidays and the fact I won't be around much meaning I won't be tempted to try it early or mess with it.
Saturday I pulled out everything and made sure I had what I needed. I then pulled the AL kettle and filled it with about 6 GAL water to season it. I want to build up the AL Oxide higher than where my wort would be. I discovered that my electric stove couldn't boil that much water. No shock really but a good test. Moved it to the turkey burner and did my boil. Sunday I got everything out and started to sanitize. Popped the pouch in the Wyeast packet but had an issue. It was hard to pop so I pushed it to the corner and hit it with my hand. When I did this, the pressure ruptured the foil pack a bit and I lost some yeast. There would be no way to see if the pack was bulging since there was now a hole in it. I which I would have sanitized it before whacking it. Too late now. Time to move on. Since I was going to do a 3gal partial boil I thought I would try the stove again but left the burner set up as a fall back. On the stove it was easy to get to 155 to do the steeping of the grains. I then went to high and after an hour and half realized that I wasn't getting above 200. I think the thin bottom of the kettle, tall head space and lack of contact with the heating element were my issues. The stove is a glass top electric model. So I gave up and moved to the Turkey Burner. Since I was already at about 200 it didn't take much to get a good boil and keep going from there. After adding my hops, the 60 min boil and adding hops at the last 2 min I went back in the house to cool the wort. I have a big enough sink to put the kettle in ice water but ran out of ice. Need to store some next time. The fridge's ice capacity isn't great enough. After the boil I had about 2 gal of wort. Transferred that to Primary and added water to 5 gallons. I stirred it a bit then took a OG reading. Recipe called for 1.040-1.045. I was at 1.051. Hmm A little higher sugar content than I expected. It is possible I didn't stir the water in well enough. I sanitized the corner of the Wyeast packet making sure to not get sanitizer in the hole from breaking the pouch. I was down to about 80 when I pitched the yeast which was a little warmer than I wanted but I was out of ice and wasn't sure how low to get the wort knowing that I would have to add about 3 gal of cold water to bring it up to 5 gal. As it was I brought it to 100 before moving it to the primary and adding water. I sealed it up and checked on it a couple times. Very little activity last night. Saw a couple bubbles in the airlock but that was about it. I could tell there was positive pressure in the primary which was good. This morning however it was going pretty well. Temp was 75 and it was burping through the air lock about 2 bubbles every second.
So lessons learned:
While I can do the steeping on the stove with the current kettle skip the stove for the boil. Or just do it all on the burner.
I was getting mixed information on when to start the yeast. Next time I think I will do it earlier, sanitize the entire foil pack. The packaging said 3 hrs but if it doesn't start I would be to a point where I needed yeast and wouldn't have any. Later I read where people do this 1-2 days early. I guess that is a plus for dry yeast. I have been looking at making a stir plate.
I remember reading about someone picking up a tray for doing wallpaper. It is long and narrow which works well for sanitization. Add that to the list for the next run to the hardware store.
Need something to pull wort for SG reading. I have a long cylinder which worked well but I just sanitized a ladle. It worked but one of those bulb things you squeeze would work better.
Need more ice or if winter make sure I have snow. Eventually move to a wort chiller. The problem with a chiller is that I can't hook it up to our kitchen sink facet. We have one of those facets that have a pull out sprayer. Maybe a cooler with ice water and a recirculation pump.
I need a Carboy for secondary yet. A buddy is getting me a couple in trade for balancing his tires on his motorcycle. I am also getting a couple Kegs for converting to Keggles. I have been reading about an electric brewery and think I will head down that path with them. If I do that I will use the AL pot for now doing extract and move to all grain.
I plan on moving to secondary this coming sat or sun. Then keg it around 13 Dec. I will force carbonate but using the low pressure long wait method as I won't be around much until early Jan to mess with it. It should be good by then.
Only problem is that I have a 1/2 barrel of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat in my kegerator now that I hooked up 3 weeks ago. I will likely have to transfer that to some Corney kegs so I can get my home brew in the fridge and tapped. I have a Beverage Air with a 3 tap tower which can hold 4 x 5 gal corneys or sixth barrels. In a pinch I also have a cobra tap to ball lock so I can have all 4 tapped. Also I have a double regulator so I can run two pressures.
I have had a kegerator for about a year now and have been collecting home brew equipment over the last year while drinking commercial beer from the fridge. I picked up a starter home brew kit and beer kit from Midwest last month as they had a Living Social Deal and it was pretty darn cheap. That kit came with a Red Ale and dry yeast. Since the yeast will keep, I am going to save that one for the next batch. Then I ordered a Amber Ale with Wyeast so I can try both methods of preparing and pitching yeast to see which I like best.
I didn't think I had a viable kettle but I have a couple Turkey Burner kits with AL pots. Then I was reading about seasoning the AL pots by a 1hr boil of water. They are new. Well I used one to steam some sweet corn a couple times this summer but other than that unused. I still plan on going Stainless eventually but, little at a time. I bought a new 5gal Corney Ball Lock and just completed converting my kegerator so I can go with either ball locks or commercial couplers. I got looking at my schedule and realized that it would be best to brew this past weekend with the holidays and the fact I won't be around much meaning I won't be tempted to try it early or mess with it.
Saturday I pulled out everything and made sure I had what I needed. I then pulled the AL kettle and filled it with about 6 GAL water to season it. I want to build up the AL Oxide higher than where my wort would be. I discovered that my electric stove couldn't boil that much water. No shock really but a good test. Moved it to the turkey burner and did my boil. Sunday I got everything out and started to sanitize. Popped the pouch in the Wyeast packet but had an issue. It was hard to pop so I pushed it to the corner and hit it with my hand. When I did this, the pressure ruptured the foil pack a bit and I lost some yeast. There would be no way to see if the pack was bulging since there was now a hole in it. I which I would have sanitized it before whacking it. Too late now. Time to move on. Since I was going to do a 3gal partial boil I thought I would try the stove again but left the burner set up as a fall back. On the stove it was easy to get to 155 to do the steeping of the grains. I then went to high and after an hour and half realized that I wasn't getting above 200. I think the thin bottom of the kettle, tall head space and lack of contact with the heating element were my issues. The stove is a glass top electric model. So I gave up and moved to the Turkey Burner. Since I was already at about 200 it didn't take much to get a good boil and keep going from there. After adding my hops, the 60 min boil and adding hops at the last 2 min I went back in the house to cool the wort. I have a big enough sink to put the kettle in ice water but ran out of ice. Need to store some next time. The fridge's ice capacity isn't great enough. After the boil I had about 2 gal of wort. Transferred that to Primary and added water to 5 gallons. I stirred it a bit then took a OG reading. Recipe called for 1.040-1.045. I was at 1.051. Hmm A little higher sugar content than I expected. It is possible I didn't stir the water in well enough. I sanitized the corner of the Wyeast packet making sure to not get sanitizer in the hole from breaking the pouch. I was down to about 80 when I pitched the yeast which was a little warmer than I wanted but I was out of ice and wasn't sure how low to get the wort knowing that I would have to add about 3 gal of cold water to bring it up to 5 gal. As it was I brought it to 100 before moving it to the primary and adding water. I sealed it up and checked on it a couple times. Very little activity last night. Saw a couple bubbles in the airlock but that was about it. I could tell there was positive pressure in the primary which was good. This morning however it was going pretty well. Temp was 75 and it was burping through the air lock about 2 bubbles every second.
So lessons learned:
While I can do the steeping on the stove with the current kettle skip the stove for the boil. Or just do it all on the burner.
I was getting mixed information on when to start the yeast. Next time I think I will do it earlier, sanitize the entire foil pack. The packaging said 3 hrs but if it doesn't start I would be to a point where I needed yeast and wouldn't have any. Later I read where people do this 1-2 days early. I guess that is a plus for dry yeast. I have been looking at making a stir plate.
I remember reading about someone picking up a tray for doing wallpaper. It is long and narrow which works well for sanitization. Add that to the list for the next run to the hardware store.
Need something to pull wort for SG reading. I have a long cylinder which worked well but I just sanitized a ladle. It worked but one of those bulb things you squeeze would work better.
Need more ice or if winter make sure I have snow. Eventually move to a wort chiller. The problem with a chiller is that I can't hook it up to our kitchen sink facet. We have one of those facets that have a pull out sprayer. Maybe a cooler with ice water and a recirculation pump.
I need a Carboy for secondary yet. A buddy is getting me a couple in trade for balancing his tires on his motorcycle. I am also getting a couple Kegs for converting to Keggles. I have been reading about an electric brewery and think I will head down that path with them. If I do that I will use the AL pot for now doing extract and move to all grain.
I plan on moving to secondary this coming sat or sun. Then keg it around 13 Dec. I will force carbonate but using the low pressure long wait method as I won't be around much until early Jan to mess with it. It should be good by then.
Only problem is that I have a 1/2 barrel of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat in my kegerator now that I hooked up 3 weeks ago. I will likely have to transfer that to some Corney kegs so I can get my home brew in the fridge and tapped. I have a Beverage Air with a 3 tap tower which can hold 4 x 5 gal corneys or sixth barrels. In a pinch I also have a cobra tap to ball lock so I can have all 4 tapped. Also I have a double regulator so I can run two pressures.
