MuchoGusto
Well-Known Member
I'm more excited than a kid in a candy store! I feel like we're having a baby!!!
First-time brewer so I imagine you old-timers can understand the excitement. Ordered a mini-mash Texas Bock out of Austin. I've got an older frig I've converted to a "cellar", so to speak, with a digital temp control for a swamp cooler I modified which is working perfect.
Start out in the early evening this past Friday "cooking" up everything according to the directions. Took out the White Labs Bock around noon and left it on the kitchen counter.. Fired up the propane fish cooker, boiled the 2 gallons of store bought drinking H2O, soaked the grains, added the LME, hops, more H2O ect. according to the directions. Cooling down the wort to 80 in 15-20 minutes in an ice bath was a pain (going to make a wort chiller for the next batch). Everything in the carboy and shot the wort with a minuet worth of pure O2 through a sanitized tube/aerating stone. Took a sample and checked the SG (on target) then pitched the yeast. Poured it in the primary, the airlock goes on and I sit back. It's 10pm and I want to see some action. 12 hours post pitching... and nada. 24 hours post pitching... and more nada. I shake er' up. 42 hours and nada. I feel like my other half is in labor and I want to at least see the "head crowning"! Come on now... deliver something! I'm getting worried the yeast died in transport. Then.... I discover "HomeBrewTalk". Go straight to the lag time issues/questions and read everything I can. Still a little worried. Then at at almost 48 hours I open the modified frig (set at 75 degrees) and what do I have.... a freakin' NUCLEAR EXPLOSION!!! What a reaction! It was literally churning inside the carboy with a head on it half the size of an average cabbage. So much so I had to pull the airlock and put in its place a 1/2 ID blow off tube into a gallon jug. The "baby" has arrived!!! Not perfect, but on the way to maturity. I'm going to crank up another batch and do a time lapse video of the hopefully "projectile vomiting" out the top!
Here's the 2 major things I've learned so far...
1. DO NOT fill a 5 gallon carboy with almost 5 gallons of wort. You'll have to replace the airlock with a blow off tube. Get a 6 gallon plus carboy for a primary. Otherwise, if I didn't happen to have a new, sanitized, right size hose I would have had a very big mess late at night and into the morning until the hardware store opened.
2. Give the yeast due time to start. Lag time means just that... "lag" time.
My next problem is figuring out what to brew next and what I'm going to name the "new baby". I'm thinking "BAB". Bad A$$ Beer!!!
MuchoGusto......
First-time brewer so I imagine you old-timers can understand the excitement. Ordered a mini-mash Texas Bock out of Austin. I've got an older frig I've converted to a "cellar", so to speak, with a digital temp control for a swamp cooler I modified which is working perfect.
Start out in the early evening this past Friday "cooking" up everything according to the directions. Took out the White Labs Bock around noon and left it on the kitchen counter.. Fired up the propane fish cooker, boiled the 2 gallons of store bought drinking H2O, soaked the grains, added the LME, hops, more H2O ect. according to the directions. Cooling down the wort to 80 in 15-20 minutes in an ice bath was a pain (going to make a wort chiller for the next batch). Everything in the carboy and shot the wort with a minuet worth of pure O2 through a sanitized tube/aerating stone. Took a sample and checked the SG (on target) then pitched the yeast. Poured it in the primary, the airlock goes on and I sit back. It's 10pm and I want to see some action. 12 hours post pitching... and nada. 24 hours post pitching... and more nada. I shake er' up. 42 hours and nada. I feel like my other half is in labor and I want to at least see the "head crowning"! Come on now... deliver something! I'm getting worried the yeast died in transport. Then.... I discover "HomeBrewTalk". Go straight to the lag time issues/questions and read everything I can. Still a little worried. Then at at almost 48 hours I open the modified frig (set at 75 degrees) and what do I have.... a freakin' NUCLEAR EXPLOSION!!! What a reaction! It was literally churning inside the carboy with a head on it half the size of an average cabbage. So much so I had to pull the airlock and put in its place a 1/2 ID blow off tube into a gallon jug. The "baby" has arrived!!! Not perfect, but on the way to maturity. I'm going to crank up another batch and do a time lapse video of the hopefully "projectile vomiting" out the top!
Here's the 2 major things I've learned so far...
1. DO NOT fill a 5 gallon carboy with almost 5 gallons of wort. You'll have to replace the airlock with a blow off tube. Get a 6 gallon plus carboy for a primary. Otherwise, if I didn't happen to have a new, sanitized, right size hose I would have had a very big mess late at night and into the morning until the hardware store opened.
2. Give the yeast due time to start. Lag time means just that... "lag" time.
My next problem is figuring out what to brew next and what I'm going to name the "new baby". I'm thinking "BAB". Bad A$$ Beer!!!
MuchoGusto......