mlyday
Well-Known Member
I made my first brews this weekend, two five gallon batches. It went ok but not without a few issue, but this was my first batches so I figured Id screw up a little, and I did.
Brew weekend started on friday night about 10 pm, well I started sanitizing about 9. I mixed up a batch of EdWorts Apfelwein.
Couldnt have been easier 10 minutes and I was done. I took it down into a room I have commandeered as my new brew room. The temp
down there is pretty stable at 68 degrees this time of year, I think it will work fine.
Saturday morning I got up and started sanitizing and getting ready to make my brewers best Red Ale kit. Put my 2.5 gallons of water
in my new 5 gal stainless pot and started the sanitizing of the rest of my equipment. It was taking a while to get up to the 155 degress to do
my steeping grains, so I pulled out another pot and poured half in there and got it up to temp and then poured it back in, and let the grain steep away.
I should mention I am using an electric stove, which I thought would be fine with only boiling 2.5 gallons, but it was less than satifactory and caused
me headaches all morning.
Once the steeping grain were done I had to fight getting up to a rolling boil, by spliting the wort a couple times heating the one and returning it to
the big pot. I think one of my problems is that the pot is wide and not tall skinny. Long story short I was able to get the boil and add my LME and return it to a boil add the hops twice pretty much all was good.
The only other screw up was that I forgot to add my Irish moss, until about 8 minutes before the end. I guess better late than never.
I think I also added a little too much water at the end to bring it up to my 5 gallons. According to the kit the gravity should have been 1.048 I came in at 1.042.
This ale used nottingham yeast I followed the directions and rehydrated the yeast while the wort was cooling.
I dont have any sort of chiller yet so I just did it in the kitchen sink, but super cooled it with ice and salt. it cool down most of the way
in about 15-20 minutes. I had put the remaining water in the frezzer at the start of the boil, and it was ice cold. I mixed the two and the resulting wort
was pretty much room temp when I pitched the yeast and aerated. I didnt get the worts temp when I pitch, because I noticed the themometer only goes as low as
100, but it was well under that.
I was a little worried because as of saturday night the apfelwein wasnt doing anything at all, I was temped to open the bucket and take a look. But I held
off and said I would give it one more day. I got up sunday and the apfelwein was a bubbling away, and I was seeing a bubble in the red ale about once every
30 seconds. As of this morning they are both bubbling strongly.
Now we wait....
Oh and I am definately hooked. And the good thing is the wife is really cool with the whole thing. She like seeing me enjoy it I guess.
Brew weekend started on friday night about 10 pm, well I started sanitizing about 9. I mixed up a batch of EdWorts Apfelwein.
Couldnt have been easier 10 minutes and I was done. I took it down into a room I have commandeered as my new brew room. The temp
down there is pretty stable at 68 degrees this time of year, I think it will work fine.
Saturday morning I got up and started sanitizing and getting ready to make my brewers best Red Ale kit. Put my 2.5 gallons of water
in my new 5 gal stainless pot and started the sanitizing of the rest of my equipment. It was taking a while to get up to the 155 degress to do
my steeping grains, so I pulled out another pot and poured half in there and got it up to temp and then poured it back in, and let the grain steep away.
I should mention I am using an electric stove, which I thought would be fine with only boiling 2.5 gallons, but it was less than satifactory and caused
me headaches all morning.
Once the steeping grain were done I had to fight getting up to a rolling boil, by spliting the wort a couple times heating the one and returning it to
the big pot. I think one of my problems is that the pot is wide and not tall skinny. Long story short I was able to get the boil and add my LME and return it to a boil add the hops twice pretty much all was good.
The only other screw up was that I forgot to add my Irish moss, until about 8 minutes before the end. I guess better late than never.
I think I also added a little too much water at the end to bring it up to my 5 gallons. According to the kit the gravity should have been 1.048 I came in at 1.042.
This ale used nottingham yeast I followed the directions and rehydrated the yeast while the wort was cooling.
I dont have any sort of chiller yet so I just did it in the kitchen sink, but super cooled it with ice and salt. it cool down most of the way
in about 15-20 minutes. I had put the remaining water in the frezzer at the start of the boil, and it was ice cold. I mixed the two and the resulting wort
was pretty much room temp when I pitched the yeast and aerated. I didnt get the worts temp when I pitch, because I noticed the themometer only goes as low as
100, but it was well under that.
I was a little worried because as of saturday night the apfelwein wasnt doing anything at all, I was temped to open the bucket and take a look. But I held
off and said I would give it one more day. I got up sunday and the apfelwein was a bubbling away, and I was seeing a bubble in the red ale about once every
30 seconds. As of this morning they are both bubbling strongly.
Now we wait....
Oh and I am definately hooked. And the good thing is the wife is really cool with the whole thing. She like seeing me enjoy it I guess.
