Kopfschmerzen
New Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2014
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 1
Hey Guys, Big hello from Wisconsin.
I just joined HBT today (even though I've read many posts on here and have had the mobile app now for months) for two reasons.
1. I'm a home-brewer and it's logical to join a forum I've already been reading.
2. I wanted to share the horror story of my last brew session.
I have to share this, and hopefully never remember it again:
Last Saturday, it was time to try out my new boil kettle (converted from a 15.5 gallon keg) on a 10 gallon batch of Kolsch. I was in Germany for last year's Octoberfest and the group we traveled (including SHMBO) with has been begging me to brew this style because there's really nothing commercially available that seems to compare to the real deal.
I've only been brewing for a few months,.I've been playing Jessie to the local brewery's Heisenberg and mentoring under him. A few weeks ago we had attempted a Kolsch. We had used a specialty "Schill Kolsh Malt" on this previous batch, but noticed the color wasn't right. No biggie,. The plan then was to brew lightened up recipe up with some good Pilzner malt to get a lighter color and supplement that with the Kolsch malt for flavor.
It was pretty much my first solo "big boy" batch. I made up a new recipe in Beersmith, had all of the grains, and was confident that I could easily pull this off after recently brewing a similar beer. I was looking forward to throwing it on the yeast cakes of the previous batch (which was racked to secondaries) and letting it sit for weeks in my cool Wisconsin basement. Maybe drinking it on a super hot day a few months from now.
That didn't happen.
What did I do wrong? It wasn't the mash because I nailed my temps. I sparged with patience getting a nice grain bed, making sure each run was nice and clear. Measured everything out exactly and put as much love as I could into this beer.
During the boil,. I added hops right at the hot break and set the timer.
The kettle was sitting safe and sound out on my backyard deck when I turned the burner off. Almost ready, time to chill with my $40 copper immersion wort chiller and garden hose.
I have a smaller/cheaper chiller and with 10 gallons it can take up to 40 minutes to chill all the way down to pitching temp. After setting up the chiller, I went inside to get my aeration equipment sanitized ready and crab the carboys with yeast cakes already inside.
When I came back to get a temp,. I noticed that the kettle was overfilled and splashing onto the deck. To my dismay, one of the hoses came off of the copper tubing that was submerged into the kettle. Dumping 5+ gallons of unpasteurized garden hose water into my finished wort. (big sigh here)
I did make a couple loafs of bread from the spent grain,. so I guess the over 10 hours of work was worth that.
My next project is to make a bigger, better, and stronger immersion chiller with more length and fittings that are OUTSIDE of the kettle.
Looking forward to learning more from all of you at HBT, and maybe helping out others if I can. Great community here, happy to be a part of it.
I just joined HBT today (even though I've read many posts on here and have had the mobile app now for months) for two reasons.
1. I'm a home-brewer and it's logical to join a forum I've already been reading.
2. I wanted to share the horror story of my last brew session.
I have to share this, and hopefully never remember it again:
Last Saturday, it was time to try out my new boil kettle (converted from a 15.5 gallon keg) on a 10 gallon batch of Kolsch. I was in Germany for last year's Octoberfest and the group we traveled (including SHMBO) with has been begging me to brew this style because there's really nothing commercially available that seems to compare to the real deal.
I've only been brewing for a few months,.I've been playing Jessie to the local brewery's Heisenberg and mentoring under him. A few weeks ago we had attempted a Kolsch. We had used a specialty "Schill Kolsh Malt" on this previous batch, but noticed the color wasn't right. No biggie,. The plan then was to brew lightened up recipe up with some good Pilzner malt to get a lighter color and supplement that with the Kolsch malt for flavor.
It was pretty much my first solo "big boy" batch. I made up a new recipe in Beersmith, had all of the grains, and was confident that I could easily pull this off after recently brewing a similar beer. I was looking forward to throwing it on the yeast cakes of the previous batch (which was racked to secondaries) and letting it sit for weeks in my cool Wisconsin basement. Maybe drinking it on a super hot day a few months from now.
That didn't happen.
What did I do wrong? It wasn't the mash because I nailed my temps. I sparged with patience getting a nice grain bed, making sure each run was nice and clear. Measured everything out exactly and put as much love as I could into this beer.
During the boil,. I added hops right at the hot break and set the timer. The kettle was sitting safe and sound out on my backyard deck when I turned the burner off. Almost ready, time to chill with my $40 copper immersion wort chiller and garden hose.
I have a smaller/cheaper chiller and with 10 gallons it can take up to 40 minutes to chill all the way down to pitching temp. After setting up the chiller, I went inside to get my aeration equipment sanitized ready and crab the carboys with yeast cakes already inside.
When I came back to get a temp,. I noticed that the kettle was overfilled and splashing onto the deck. To my dismay, one of the hoses came off of the copper tubing that was submerged into the kettle. Dumping 5+ gallons of unpasteurized garden hose water into my finished wort. (big sigh here)
I did make a couple loafs of bread from the spent grain,. so I guess the over 10 hours of work was worth that.
My next project is to make a bigger, better, and stronger immersion chiller with more length and fittings that are OUTSIDE of the kettle.
Looking forward to learning more from all of you at HBT, and maybe helping out others if I can. Great community here, happy to be a part of it.
