Every started out with best intentions and have things go sideways.
I had some all grain kits that I bought over two plus years ago and forgot all about them until I was cleaning a room. Well nothing to lose if they don’t work out and I wanted to get back into all grain brewing versus extract brewing so I could make Hefeweizen inexpensively if I used that method and buy grains in bulk. So a good practice run if nothing else.
Chapter 1 - So it begins - the hot liquor tank setup
I have the two 10 gallon insulated cooler setup and a pump for all grain brewing. Dragged them out the crawl space. When I reassembled my hot liquor tank, I must have lost an SST washer that goes on the inside against the O-Ring to seal off the sidewall at the drain. Filled it up with some water to see if would hold and leaked terribly. While I had large zinc plated washer for shafts I could use, not going to use that as I have no idea the effect a zinc plated washer may have on the brew.
Chapter 2 – Adapt and improvise
So, the only large container I have left is a 15-gallon megapot I use for boiling. Well I cannot use that as the sparge tank as I don’t really have another container large enough to collect all the wort as I wanted to fly sparge. But could I setup the megapot as both the sparge tank and brew tank? Hmmm…if I connect the megapot drain to the pump and then run a hose from the pump outlet to the top of tun tank and connect that to a diffuser for fly sparging, it might work.
Chapter 3 - Another rabbit hole - Cold sparge versus hot sparge temperature
Since my sparge tank insulated cooler was out of service, I could have just heated up the water in the brew tank (for looping above) in the garage and lugged it into the laundry room but I was so flustered by things going south, that rather than taking the time to step back and heat up sparge water, I googled sparge temp and the effect of efficiency and found some info that that was not as big deal as everyone makes it out to be. If you use a looser mash, you can sparge with room temp water. The trade off is you might lose some efficiency. Well ****, that is easy enough and off we go.
Loose Mash using about 1.6 qts / 1lb at 153°F and rested for an hour.
Opened the tun drain valve and using a pitcher kept recirculating it until I got clear wort out so to know the grains bed was settled and then shut the valve.
Setup the diffuser onto the tun tank top and turned the pump on and then opened the drain valve on the megapot. The megapot was now pumping the sparge water to the top the tun tank. About the same time I opened the Mash Tun drain valve to drain into the megapot. I adjusted the two drain valves as to keep about an inch of water above the grain bed and just let run in a continuous recirculating loop for about 10-15 min. Turned off the pump, shut the megapot drain valve and let the mash tun tank drain the remaining liquid into the megapot for about a half hour (had to eat something) . I had about 6.5 gallons of wort when said and done.
Lugged the megapot filled with wort into the garage and boiled / hopped as directed…no issues, at least something went right. Chilled and transferred to a glass carboy.
Efficiency turned out to be around 72%. When I looked what the kit efficiency was (Caribou slobber clone) it appears it is about 75%, so good enough for me.
Chapter 4 - How old is too old?
So get the wort boiled and cooled and looked at the yeast packet, expired in Jan, well, I have Frankensteined this batch up this much, let’s let it roll. Pitched it per direction on the packet into the carboy at 10am. Check at 3 pm and the airlock is showing some activity and good amount of foam. Yeah it’s alive, all is good.
Chapter 5 – Sounds in the night
4:45 am…I am waken by a very loud pop sound. WTF was that? Not being clear of mind, thinking maybe a bird hit window / tree branch hitting the house (stormy out). Walked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Go back to bed but in the back of my mind what could have been that sound? Crap....I wonder it was the brew, it was active pretty quick.
Chapter 6 – The crime scene
Walked into the laundry room to see if it was the brew that made the sound. Sure enough, the air lock / stopper is sitting on the floor next to the carboy and foam is coming out of the top of the carboy. The yeast had become so active that it blew the air lock / stopper right out of the carboy. Looked up at the ceiling and there is big splatter mark about the same shape as the air lock / stopper, then I looked at the wall and it just coated with krausen spray. I think the only saving grace from completely spraying the entire laundry room was that I had the carboy in a cardboard box and the flaps were adjusted to prevent light from the carboy and even they were blown open with foam dripping off them.
Chapter 7 – Clean up on aisle 10
So at 5 am I am wiping down the walls (all the way to the ceiling), trying my best to clean the popcorn textured ceiling and mopping the floors (all while in my underwear). I just left the airlock / stopped off as it was still spitting foam out the carboy at 8 am. (glad the wife was out of town)
I am really looking forward seeing the final result as this was one big misadventure.
I had some all grain kits that I bought over two plus years ago and forgot all about them until I was cleaning a room. Well nothing to lose if they don’t work out and I wanted to get back into all grain brewing versus extract brewing so I could make Hefeweizen inexpensively if I used that method and buy grains in bulk. So a good practice run if nothing else.
Chapter 1 - So it begins - the hot liquor tank setup
I have the two 10 gallon insulated cooler setup and a pump for all grain brewing. Dragged them out the crawl space. When I reassembled my hot liquor tank, I must have lost an SST washer that goes on the inside against the O-Ring to seal off the sidewall at the drain. Filled it up with some water to see if would hold and leaked terribly. While I had large zinc plated washer for shafts I could use, not going to use that as I have no idea the effect a zinc plated washer may have on the brew.
Chapter 2 – Adapt and improvise
So, the only large container I have left is a 15-gallon megapot I use for boiling. Well I cannot use that as the sparge tank as I don’t really have another container large enough to collect all the wort as I wanted to fly sparge. But could I setup the megapot as both the sparge tank and brew tank? Hmmm…if I connect the megapot drain to the pump and then run a hose from the pump outlet to the top of tun tank and connect that to a diffuser for fly sparging, it might work.
Chapter 3 - Another rabbit hole - Cold sparge versus hot sparge temperature
Since my sparge tank insulated cooler was out of service, I could have just heated up the water in the brew tank (for looping above) in the garage and lugged it into the laundry room but I was so flustered by things going south, that rather than taking the time to step back and heat up sparge water, I googled sparge temp and the effect of efficiency and found some info that that was not as big deal as everyone makes it out to be. If you use a looser mash, you can sparge with room temp water. The trade off is you might lose some efficiency. Well ****, that is easy enough and off we go.
Loose Mash using about 1.6 qts / 1lb at 153°F and rested for an hour.
Opened the tun drain valve and using a pitcher kept recirculating it until I got clear wort out so to know the grains bed was settled and then shut the valve.
Setup the diffuser onto the tun tank top and turned the pump on and then opened the drain valve on the megapot. The megapot was now pumping the sparge water to the top the tun tank. About the same time I opened the Mash Tun drain valve to drain into the megapot. I adjusted the two drain valves as to keep about an inch of water above the grain bed and just let run in a continuous recirculating loop for about 10-15 min. Turned off the pump, shut the megapot drain valve and let the mash tun tank drain the remaining liquid into the megapot for about a half hour (had to eat something) . I had about 6.5 gallons of wort when said and done.
Lugged the megapot filled with wort into the garage and boiled / hopped as directed…no issues, at least something went right. Chilled and transferred to a glass carboy.
Efficiency turned out to be around 72%. When I looked what the kit efficiency was (Caribou slobber clone) it appears it is about 75%, so good enough for me.
Chapter 4 - How old is too old?
So get the wort boiled and cooled and looked at the yeast packet, expired in Jan, well, I have Frankensteined this batch up this much, let’s let it roll. Pitched it per direction on the packet into the carboy at 10am. Check at 3 pm and the airlock is showing some activity and good amount of foam. Yeah it’s alive, all is good.
Chapter 5 – Sounds in the night
4:45 am…I am waken by a very loud pop sound. WTF was that? Not being clear of mind, thinking maybe a bird hit window / tree branch hitting the house (stormy out). Walked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Go back to bed but in the back of my mind what could have been that sound? Crap....I wonder it was the brew, it was active pretty quick.
Chapter 6 – The crime scene
Walked into the laundry room to see if it was the brew that made the sound. Sure enough, the air lock / stopper is sitting on the floor next to the carboy and foam is coming out of the top of the carboy. The yeast had become so active that it blew the air lock / stopper right out of the carboy. Looked up at the ceiling and there is big splatter mark about the same shape as the air lock / stopper, then I looked at the wall and it just coated with krausen spray. I think the only saving grace from completely spraying the entire laundry room was that I had the carboy in a cardboard box and the flaps were adjusted to prevent light from the carboy and even they were blown open with foam dripping off them.
Chapter 7 – Clean up on aisle 10
So at 5 am I am wiping down the walls (all the way to the ceiling), trying my best to clean the popcorn textured ceiling and mopping the floors (all while in my underwear). I just left the airlock / stopped off as it was still spitting foam out the carboy at 8 am. (glad the wife was out of town)
I am really looking forward seeing the final result as this was one big misadventure.
