Evan!
Well-Known Member
This brewing thing, it's that easy. Or, at least, it can be. Take yesterday, for example. I came into work with no plans to brew whatsoever. I took care of a bunch of stuff, and realized I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. So I could waste it here at the office, or go home and brew. So I amended my Sweet Baby Jesus Pale Ale recipe a little bit, printed it out, and balled out around 12:10. Got home at 12:15. Filled up 3 gallon jugs with filtered water and got the strike water heating. Meanwhile, I weighed and crushed the grain, weighed the hop additions, and got out some miscellaneous equipment. Mashed in by 12:45. Rather than my typical stepped mash, I went straight to 151ºf and held for about 70 minutes before stepping up to 158º for the last 20 or so. Iodine test was negative at 70 mins, but I hadn't heated the sparge water to temp just yet.
Drained, sparged, boiled, chilled, strained, pitched. With this 60-qt kettle I got not long ago, I don't have to watch the boil like I used to. I have so much headspace, I can pretty much leave it alone after the hot break, and just come back when I get to the hop additions. So I used that time to clean up. Efficient!
I overestimated my evap rate because it was like 70º outside in January. Ack! But it worked out well because I had underestimated my mash efficiency (ended up around 85%!!), so even though I probably have 6 gallons of wort, I hit my expected OG (1.052) dead-on. I also had my IBU's a little higher than I wanted, so that worked out perfectly as well.
I was pitched and all cleaned up by 4:17pm. 4 hours from start to finish---hot damn. So I grabbed the dog and we went trail running. When I got back, the wife was home and had no idea that I'd brewed.
Here we are. The SBJPA is on the far left, and was just starting to show signs this morning.
I even somehow found the energy to bottle my 888 RIS and rack my Weizenbock to secondary last night. Oddly enough, though, both the Weizenbock and the Destroyer of Worlds IIPA (which I racked to tertiary several days ago) now have little bubbles of CO2 rising to the surface again. I guess the yeast just needed to be woken up, as they weren't entirely done. Slackers.
Here's to efficient, easy brewing...and without any of those fancy-pants tiered sculptures or pumps...
Drained, sparged, boiled, chilled, strained, pitched. With this 60-qt kettle I got not long ago, I don't have to watch the boil like I used to. I have so much headspace, I can pretty much leave it alone after the hot break, and just come back when I get to the hop additions. So I used that time to clean up. Efficient!
I overestimated my evap rate because it was like 70º outside in January. Ack! But it worked out well because I had underestimated my mash efficiency (ended up around 85%!!), so even though I probably have 6 gallons of wort, I hit my expected OG (1.052) dead-on. I also had my IBU's a little higher than I wanted, so that worked out perfectly as well.
I was pitched and all cleaned up by 4:17pm. 4 hours from start to finish---hot damn. So I grabbed the dog and we went trail running. When I got back, the wife was home and had no idea that I'd brewed.
Here we are. The SBJPA is on the far left, and was just starting to show signs this morning.
I even somehow found the energy to bottle my 888 RIS and rack my Weizenbock to secondary last night. Oddly enough, though, both the Weizenbock and the Destroyer of Worlds IIPA (which I racked to tertiary several days ago) now have little bubbles of CO2 rising to the surface again. I guess the yeast just needed to be woken up, as they weren't entirely done. Slackers.
Here's to efficient, easy brewing...and without any of those fancy-pants tiered sculptures or pumps...
