My Little Brew Get Together

[Lil' Sparky]

Six of us got together yesterday and brewed up three batches. Four of the guys were new to brewing and one of the guys is an extract brewer who hadn't brewed in a few years. We busted out 10 gallons of EdWort's Haus Pale Ale (AG), 5 gallons of Dunkelweizen (PM), and 5 gallons of Doppelbock (PM). The ladies carved up some pumpkins with the squids and we finished up with some fantastic kabobs on the barbi. Great day!

Skip stirring the mash at dough in.

Mmmmm.

Mark, sorting out his ingredients for his two PM recipes.

Boil's on for the first batch. Fellas are chillin.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Bringing the Dunkelweizen to a boil.

Chilling 10 gallons of Pale Ale, Boiling the Dunkelweizen, and bringing the Doppelbock to a boil.

The first fruits of our labor.

 

[EdWort]

Great weather for it! Looks like you had a blast. I hope all the beer turns out great and you've recruited new brewers! I feel like I was there in spirit.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Yeah, the weather was great. I think one of the guys was interested enough to get into it.

I'm looking forward to your pale ale. This was my first time to brew it. Everything with it went without a hitch. Not sure about the other batches. The other guy was handling those details (although a little unorganized), but it seems a little hard to screw up an extract batch. Luckily we were able to use my chiller for all the batches. He was going to take his buckets home and stick them in an ice bath.

 

[dollhousebrewery]

Where do you all get those really cool awesome wooden stirrers?!

 

[Lil' Sparky]

It's a bayou classic paddle. I picked it up at Home Depot or Lowes for about $8. I drilled some 1" holes in it to let it act more like a rake, not just a paddle. You can find them online as well. I'm not sure if HD/Lowes carries them year-round.

You can barely see in this picture the holes I'm talking about.

 

[dilligas2u]

Question.
Never did an all grain but will this weekend What is the rag used for? the one on the cross in the last Pic I also seen it in one of the boil pics

 

[Lil' Sparky]

It's a hop bag. The PVC coupling lets you toss in the hops and the rods suspend it over the kettle. As the wort is drained from the kettle, the hops stay behind in the "hop sock" or "sludge sack" as it has become affectionately know.

Here's a better pic of it in use, and you can find some other designs and testimonials here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=40738