Confession Time

I hadn't found this thread before now, but boy do I have one to add!

I had my brother over for my annual "New Year, New Beer" brew. I try a technique/style/beer I have never done before on New Year's Eve or day. This year, I got over ambitious and in way over my head.

A little information on my standard, very inefficient, time management process:
I live in apartment and still brew on my stovetop (confession #1).
I use a 7.5 gallon kettle to mash and brew in (confession #2).
I have a 9 month old in the next room, this was an overnight brew session.

This year was a multi rest, double mash, parti gyle Wheatwine and American Wheat. I thought it would be a good test to see if I could rest at 104, 122, 145, 155, and mash out at 168. I ended up within 1 degree of each. Resting 20 minutes each at 122,145,155. Total time from the start of mash to after the batch sparge: 4 hours... For each mash.

Then I had a 90 minute boil on the Wheatwine. Cooled with an immersion chiller to 62*.

Then the 60 minute American Wheat boil. Cooled down to 62*.

Total length of brew day: 16 hours until equipment was cleaned and put away.

Oh, I also put my brother to work bottling my Whoa Heavy strong scotch because I needed the bucket for the brew that was currently boiling.

My brother, who likes beer but had never seen the brewing process, was not impressed.

Oh, also, we broke a bottle during bottling (still in the kitchen) spilling beer everywhere. And I scorched the bottom of my kettle worse than I ever have during the second mash. I cleaned with bar keeper's friend for 40 minutes before beginning the first boil.

The American Wheat turned into a Wheat IPA at the 60 minute addition, so I changed that recipe on the fly.

Worst brew session in my 4 years of brewing....

 

Shhhhhhh... don't let out the secret

 

For all youse Catliks... (think Brooklyn, NY)
Bless me brewers for I have sinned...
Don't bother taking three samples to verify that fermentation is done. 3+ weeks and we're good to go.
Leave my rinsed bottles sitting in Oxy for many days in a row.
Haven't been brewing as much as I could be.
Been having unclean thoughts about Mary Callahan....
Oh, and if I win that $700,000,000+ Powerball I promise to send my family lots of postcards (to be mailed from other locations...).

 

My last 3 brews have been grain to glass in 6-7 days. I'm impatient and don't brew enough to have a proper pipeline. I also enjoy high gravity brews, but I must say I've nailed each one of them pretty darn well.

1.056, 1.086 and 1.092, grain to glass in 7 days.

Granted, they generally get a long cold conditioning period as I slowly drink them, but I know that I have sinned...

My next brew is a tripel and I plan on racking 1 gallon onto Brett Brux and kegging the rest. That way I kinda force myself to properly age at least some of it...

 

I do this, can about 3 gallons of starter wort in quart jars every so often. Huge time saver.

 

I confess....I am an idiot! SWMBO appeared out of the kitchen awhile ago, grabs me by the arm while informing me "We've got a problem that requires your attention." Leading me into the kitchen, SWMBO points out a plastic deli container full of the spent specialty grains left over from my last brewing session (last weekend if I'm remembering correctly), that I had overlooked while cleaning up. To say that it was nasty is a bit of an understatement. The lesson here? Always double check your brewing area after a brew day, especially if you are using the kitchen, or suffer the wrath of your better half when she finds something festering on the counter that looks like a runaway science experiment. :smack:

 

Congrats on the first brew
Sounds like you got it in the end. For what it's worth, no one has a smooth brew day their first go around, especially if it's solo.

 

I confess that I made an assumption during Saturdays brew day that my brew buddy turned off the burner. We were waiting out the mash rest and went inside to sample a BCBS and some other beers where it was warmer than the garage. I poked my head outside for something, not really sure what and smelled something... warm? odd? I don't know how to explain it. Jogged to the burner and sure enough it was still on and really heating the hell out of my kettle. Since it was almost time to start the sparge water to heating (yes, it was going that long), we filled her up hearing that wonderful hiss noise and kept on brewing.

Then, as with my last brew that needed a sugar addition to the boil we forgot to add the sugar. Dumped it in the fermenter and poured the wort vigorously over it to mix in. No wonder we were .01 points shy of our OG.

The beer is happily bubbling away as we speak. I bet you it is not ruined.

 

I confess that I ran out of StarSan 2 brews ago.

Every time I'm in the LHBS, I forget about it because... well, it's not the most exciting thing to buy over there.

So, for the past two brews, I've had a little spray bottle of the stuff mixed up and have been using that for all sanitizing. Spraying the kegs, fermenters, thief, what-have-you.

I'm almost out. Which means I better not forget when I go back next time. But I most certainly will.

 

Outside of hoses...that is all I do to sanitize.

 

This beer just finished fermenting, left it in primary about 3 weeks. The only thing I changed is I dind't use the min rice I used rice hulls I got from the LHBS. I have to agree that BMC fans will really like this beer, my friend said and I quote "Its like Miller but with a different taste" Yeah..as in better it has flavor!!

 

???

 

Rice hulls are a completely separate concept from minute rice. One converts from starch to sugars and the other helps with lautering. You knew that, right?

...is that your confession?

 

I swirled my thermometer in my boiling water to get an accurate temp... Don't do this. A little tap on the inside of the pot and the small black bb's in the thermometer went everywhere! Had to dump it out and start over. (lucky I didn't add my extract yet)

2nd. I fear tap water...for brewing or drinking... lucky for me. I have a well drilled out back that I use for brewing.

 

Are you in Flint MI?

 

Missing Grommet Mystery: In my last post, I mentioned pushing the airlock grommet back through the lid and it ended up in my Black IPA. So black, in fact, I never did find it...

 

Is that like those cakes where if you get the toy baby you are going to have the next one or some such? If you get the bottle with the grommet you have to pay for the ingredients for the next batch?

 

Could it have dissolved?

 

I wouldn't think so. I presume those little black grommets are made of neoprene, which even gasoline and most common chemicals/solvents can't dissolve. If it dissolved in my beer, my stomach doesn't have a chance!

 

I regularly leave my batches in the primary or secondary for wayyyyyyy longer than planned before transferring or bottling. Sometimes out of lack of time, sometimes just more preoccupied playing Fallout.

 

Hmmm...I guess I'll also have to confess that one of my more recent meads spent....wait for it.......13 months in primary before I kegged it. It's one of the best meads I've ever made!

 

I confess i kind of find delabelling theraputic. Watching sodium percarbonate melt labels off makes me happy.
I also don't mind bottling much; once I've learned all the tricks to make it less painful

 

If you didn't harvest yeast you must have tossed it. No way that sucker got through the bottling wand AND through the filler!!

 

Honestly, I have been bottling for years, hate delabeling, never realized sodium percarbonate would work...

 

I broke my testing cylinder today, but was so intent on bottling anyway that I dropped the hydrometer in the carboy. Got my reading, but it shifted and I couldn't get it out with tongs. So I had to wait until I got the cake rinsed out and grabbed the hydrometer on the way out of the opening.

Didn't break though!

 

I will stick my fingers into the runoff towards the end and taste it to see how much sugar is left. Shouldn't be a problem really since I boil it afterwards.

 

I confess: I had my first sour beer and liked it. (Lindemans Framboise)

 

Where's that guy... The one who dips a pint glass in his actively fermenting wort and drinks most of it before the beer even stops fermenting. And spends most of his week on the toilet... And then wonders why the remaining wort is always infected... Where is that guy? He wins the gold medal for that confession I think.

zc

 

This going to be awesome or a total failure nothing in between. Gogo prebiotic berliner

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Only three brews in so not too much to confess yet however... I ALWAYS read words related to brewing as if they were normal English words.

Wort rhymes with short
Trub rhymes with flub
Krausen rhymes with plows-in

I don't know anyone else who brews so it isn't like I ever hear anyone else say them. I mostly talk to my brother about it, we both know the proper way but kind of ignore it and say it our way.

Then again I'm kind of a hick anyway so **** it.

Few more:
No Hydrometer for first beer
Never actually followed a recipe
Girlfriend already seems sick of hearing about brewing, but seems interested in wine so we'll give that a shot
Refrained from punching my dad for referring to any beer more flavourful than Molson Canadian as "horse piss"
Always read "BMC" as Bud MOLSON Coors

 

"Trub" rhymes with "boob".



I have heard the word "krausen" said only once in my life, and the person pronounced it "kroyzen". IDK if that's right or wrong.

 

Kroyzen, troob.

Wort rhymes with hurt.

 

I say it like craw-zen

 

i pronounce krausen with german pronounciation, no clue if it is right or wrong, but i speak german, so it's automatic with that kind of word

 

Krausen = Frau sen? That's what I go with.

 

Despite my best efforts, I have learned a thing today.

 

I confess I'm getting a little fed up with how little faith my roommate has in me.

I have an gas and oil license (most commonly associated with HVAC, but I can work on BBQ's, Stoves, Fireplaces, etc etc), and she's worried I'll damage her stove while I'm trying to fix whatever she did to it. She's worried I'll break her dryer when I re-attach the moisture venting to the back of it.

Today she expressed concern that I might blow up the house when I came home with my replacement beer brewing supplies.

 

I've always heard:

Trub = Troob (although I like slym2none's way)
Krausen = kroyzen or Croyx-zen like St. Croyx (or St. Croix if you're in NS)
Wort = Wert rhymes with hurt.

Confession, weak but I forgot to CC 2l worth starter so dumped the whole thing in even thought I'm trying to hit over 10% for contest. Might still get there but I hurt my chances.

 

OK, so "kroyzen" is correct, and I learned how wort is actually pronounced.

It's true, one learns something new every day...

 

Just like in America/England/Scotland/etc, depends on the regional dialect. Krausen could be Krissen (likely) in Swiss German or Krawsen in Sachsen-Anhalt (no, clue, just made it up but it is a real place).