Upgraded to my first partial-mash brew and first full-volume brew last night. The only thing that didn't go wrong is that I think I may actually have produced viable wort at the end of the day.
1. Trying to assemble my new expensive blichmann brew kettle I destroyed the $70 built-in thermometer
2. while taking the mash temperature I broke my backup glass thermometer in the brew kettle (thats two thermometers destroyed within the first 30 minutes of brewing)
3. sparging the grains proved to be exceptionally difficult (holding up grain bag and pouring sparge water in method, no so much fun when you don't have another person to hold the bag)
4. my electric stove with a bucket heater took forever to boil with the lid closed and still did not produce enough heat to keep the boil going once the lid was removed (though I think the temp was pretty close to boiling).
4. since I was doing full boil I couldn't just pick up the kettle and move it near my sink to cool like I could with partial boil. My wort chiller does NOT reach to the stove (off by only 6 or 8 inches). I ended up siphoning the hot wort into my fermenter (steel conical) on the floor so that I could move it and chill it.
5. The heat from the wort warped my auto-siphon and ruined the siphon hose
6. Used aeration stone for the first time, was happy with it but for the love of god how do you keep it submerged? I ended up hunched over holding the tube down into the wort for 20 minutes.
1. Trying to assemble my new expensive blichmann brew kettle I destroyed the $70 built-in thermometer
2. while taking the mash temperature I broke my backup glass thermometer in the brew kettle (thats two thermometers destroyed within the first 30 minutes of brewing)
3. sparging the grains proved to be exceptionally difficult (holding up grain bag and pouring sparge water in method, no so much fun when you don't have another person to hold the bag)
4. my electric stove with a bucket heater took forever to boil with the lid closed and still did not produce enough heat to keep the boil going once the lid was removed (though I think the temp was pretty close to boiling).
4. since I was doing full boil I couldn't just pick up the kettle and move it near my sink to cool like I could with partial boil. My wort chiller does NOT reach to the stove (off by only 6 or 8 inches). I ended up siphoning the hot wort into my fermenter (steel conical) on the floor so that I could move it and chill it.
5. The heat from the wort warped my auto-siphon and ruined the siphon hose
6. Used aeration stone for the first time, was happy with it but for the love of god how do you keep it submerged? I ended up hunched over holding the tube down into the wort for 20 minutes.