New year's eve brew live

[northcal]

Fired up the rig a bit ago thought I would share!

Strike water ready

Grain ready

Adding hot water

Dough in

Mash initial temp

Hops on deck

Ready to transfer old batch to get the yeast cake

More later,

 

[poptarts]

wow that is one ugly keggle, you might have biermuncher beat

 

[northcal]

wow that is one ugly keggle, you might have biermuncher beat

Beautiful to me bro!

It was made with love...

 

[phil74501]

wow that is one ugly keggle, you might have biermuncher beat

That looks like something I would do. :fro:

 

[northcal]

Mash got stabilized @152

transferred the old brew

 

[northcal]

Pics of the exterior of the brewshed

Space is tight inside so some stuff happens outside like the fermentation chamber and washing.

As my brother told me water drainage is really important. We put in a pit in the slab with a sewage pump

 

[northcal]

A quick break time, it's gonna get busy soon with the sparge in about 5'

 

[MrNatural]

Hey Now!
Back to work brudda..........

 

[northcal]

Hey Now!
Back to work brudda..........

Hey!

Happy new year, buddy!

 

[northcal]

OK she's at a steady boil now. Time for another break.

Sparging

The GOODS are running clear

BK almost full

 

[northcal]

Hops bagged

Boiling nicely

Add a couple of these

Spent grain

Spent grain removal

Got about 40' until the boil is done. Might have time for another homebrew. :rockin:

 

[November]

I like your ceiling mounted hoist. I use sanke kegs as fermenters and have thought one would be be handy.

 

[Yellowirenut]

Do you make crane noises wile lifting? I know I would

 

[northcal]

I like your ceiling mounted hoist. I use sanke kegs as fermenters and have thought one would be be handy.

Do you make crane noises wile lifting? I know I would

November, it's been a great feature. You could also pressurize and transfer with CO2, but I like the spent grain removal too.

Yellow, no I don't! but Haha I'll try that next time (or probably get a buddy to do it).

Boil is done, gonna go crank up the chiller water. Hope my OG is good.

 

[northcal]

Wort is down to 77 degrees now.

My phone died so no pics for a bit.

Almost time for the O2 and yeast, my favorite parts.

 

[cyberbrew]

Loving this thread. Cheers for the New Year!!!

 

[TeamJolly]

Wow! As a newbie to brewing that is an awesome setup!

 

[Hoppity]

Happy New Year.

 

[northcal]

Loving this thread. Cheers for the New Year!!!

Wow! As a newbie to brewing that is an awesome setup!

Happy New Year.

Thanks y'all, it was fun to do the new years brew and share it!

 

[northcal]

Final wort temp, went a little lower than normal since this yeast cake is gonna rock that wort's world.

Transfer from BK to fermenter

 

[northcal]

What's the OG?

Got my refractometer

and my pipettes

The payoff, nice OG and great efficiency.

Adding a little O2 juice

Done for the night

Have a hoppy new year my fellow brewers!

:rockin:

 

[BennettBlvdBrewing]

Way to go, Buddy! Have one for me!

 

[northcal]

UPDATE:

Despite the low temps last night and today, I ended up changing out the airlock for a blow off tube on the new year's eve brew.

It was cranking out CO2 this morning even though it was at 57 degrees. Probably should have removed some of the yeast cake?

Glad the temperature got down below freezing last night to keep the brew cool in my brewshed for some free cooling with the big brew and lots of yeast. I'm ramping the temp up now to complete the fermentation.

 

[Hello]

That is awesome. Nice job. How do you neat your shed?

 

[northcal]

That is awesome. Nice job. How do you neat your shed?

Just a plug in electric heater.

 

[northcal]

Heater pics attached.

It is an old school model that I plug into an STC. Works great.

It doesn't get very cold where I'm at though; AC in the summer is more of a necessity although it's pretty cold this week!

 

[northcal]

Note this is


Converted the brewshed to a crab shack last night.

Buddy dropped off a bunch of fresh dungies for the crab feed.

Yum!

 

[CraigKing]

Wow, I love the write up with detailed pics along the way! Sometimes I much more of a visual-learner!

How big of a batch was this? 10gal?

 

[northcal]

Sometimes I much more of a visual-learner!

How big of a batch was this? 10gal?

Yes me too, it was 11 gallons in the end.

 

[northcal]

Pulled the blow off tube and put the airlock back on today and took a reading.

OG: 18 brix

~FG: 9 brix

= ~8.2% ABV
Not too bad for the New Year's brew!



I'll keep updating until it's poured.

 

[CraigKing]

Do you find that using a refractometer is better/easier than a hydrometer?

 

[northcal]

Do you find that using a refractometer is better/easier than a hydrometer?

It is easier and better for me. I remove about 0.3 ml (a few drops) of wort with a sterile pipette and put it on the refractometer. Look through it and bingo.

The down side is you need to calculate the FG, but with a smart phone or computer it's easy.

I like not having to sanitize anything to get the small sample, not wasting the sample, and the temp correction is great for measuring hot samples.

No other updates today on the New Year's brew! still bubbling about twice a minute in the airlock.

 

[Horseshoot]

The crabs look delish! Hope you had a good homebrew to go with it! Here in Maine, we'd do lobstah!

 

[aprichman]

Wow that is an awesome brewing setup northcal!