1st brewday out of the way!

[Looper]

I purchased the Deluxe Starter Kit from Northern Brewer last week in hopes of brewing ASAP.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/starter-kits/deluxe-beer-starter-kit.html

I acquired a 30 quart aluminum turkey fryer from Ace Hardware for $74.99...

I put together a hop-spider from Lowes (cost ~$15USD)

My buddy, a plumber, put together a 60' copper Immersion Chiller with compression fittings and high temp hoses. Intake end fitted with female garden fitting.

I also ordered the Dead Ringer IPA from NB..
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/dead-ringer-ipa-extract-kit.html

It was 80 and beautiful in the greater chicagoland area yesterday, with strong storms moving in evening/overnight.

We took a risk, and began brewing at around 6pm, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.

Everything went pretty well, except we ran out of propane about 15 minutes into the boil. A quick run to the local gas station, and 10 minutes later we were back on the hunt. The temperature only dropped to about 180 degrees F.

We resumed the boil, and made sure to resume the timer only once it started boiling again.

The immersion chiller worked like a CHARM! Cooled from 212 degrees to 80 in about 7 minutes. Hosewater was absolutely freezing cold. Did not take a temperature though.

When I was racking from the kettle to the carboy, the hose touched the brick patio ground as wort was flowing out, hopefully not infecting the wort. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one. I should have stopped the siphon, sanitized the siphon tubing, and restarted the racking process. I just continued the siphon and got it back into the carboy as fast as possible. 5 seconds later I was kicking myself about it.. Then I just RDWHAHB'd.

Original gravity in the directions is listed as 1064.

My OG reading was 1070. I used a full-boil, starting with 5.5gallons and ending up with 5 gallons (figured I could add a little water if I needed to. Better than ending up with too much wort).

How could it be higher than the predicted OG on an extract kit? Did the specialty grains add more sugars than expected?

Anyways the 6.5G carboy has a thick layer of krausen on it right now, sitting on the floor in my laundry room at a comfy 66.3 degrees.

Looking forward to trying my first homebrew in a few weeks!

 

[Acoma]

That's a good buddy. Copper isn't cheap!

 

[ThePearsonFam]

Did you take your OG at 60F? or, did you take it at another temp and have to adjust the reading using the calibration numbers? How confident are you that you got EXACTLY 5 gallons collected? If you collected 4.6 gallons, it would make your OG 1070 vice 1064 with 5 gallons...

 

[wi_brewer]

I would invest in a new thermometer...I have the same kettle and the thermometer that came with it was junk.

 

[Looper]

I took my OG at ~75... How would this affect the actual OG? I wasn't aware that 60F was the optimal temp for grav readings, thanks.

I am 95% sure I have exactly 5.0 gallons collected. I started the boil with 5.5 gallons, and actually expected to end up with ~4.5ish, and have to add water to reach the 5.0gallon batch size. When I racked from the kettle into the primary carboy, it ended up almost exactly at the 5 gallon sharpie mark on the bottle, making no additional water necessary.

 

[Ringmaster]

Congratulations on your first brew day! I've been sticking it out without an immersion chiller i can only imagine it makes a world of difference.

 

[Looper]

I made the leap straight to an immersion chiller, so never had to painfully ice-water-bath-it!! From what I read on here, anytime you're using a brew kettle this large (7.5 gallons), an IC is necessary in order to avoid off-flavors from a slow cool-down.

I was really impressed how fast it cooled from boiling to room temp! love this thing!

 

[ThePearsonFam]

You can use this to temp correct: http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/hydrometer.html

or this: http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixA.html

At 75F, there's a +2 correction, so your actual OG was 1072. I'm not sure how you'd end up higher without more sugar or less water.

 

[ThePearsonFam]

oh, and most hydrometers are calibrated for 60F. Yours should say that on the stem or on the package. Most come with a paper temp correction table inside the tube.

 

[Looper]

I'm not sure how you'd end up higher without more sugar or less water.

Is there a chance that I achieved higher efficiency from my specialty grains than the assumed amount?

I agree with you though, there has to be one or the other!

 

[ThePearsonFam]

Running the recipe through hopville.com result in an OG of 1071 with the grains. You're really disolving sugars from the Crystal 40L and rinsing them off when you steep, not really converting (although some does occur).

 

[ThePearsonFam]

here's the ppg associated with some of the specialty grains:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter13-2.html