New guy

[soccerguy83]

Hmm that's odd, I can see them, I have them linked off another forum just as I always do.

Will look into it.

 

[unionrdr]

They can't be linked off another forum. wherever you get them, they must be loaded to an online service like photobucket, then linked here. Unless it's facebook or youtube.

 

[soccerguy83]

Well there's the issue, will try to sort it out tonight, kinda a pain that you can't just upload straight from the computer.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, I know. But that's the way vbulletin software traditionally works.

 

[JimRausch]

Well soccerguy, I sure hope that after all this equipment building you decide that you actually like the brewing and fermenting process!
Anyways, I admire you for doing all the research that you have done before jumping in. Good Luck on your 1st brew!

 

[soccerguy83]

Last night I got my kettle and three more kits in! I also took 50' of 3/8" OD copper and made a rib cage wort chiller. Now I just need to put fittings on it and wire the ribs together for strength.
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[unionrdr]

I always thought the ribcage chiller design looked efficient. I'm curious as to how well/fast it works? The tall boy looks good too. Looks about the right diameter & height for my stove elements & biab.

 

[soccerguy83]

Well soccerguy, I sure hope that after all this equipment building you decide that you actually like the brewing and fermenting process!
Anyways, I admire you for doing all the research that you have done before jumping in. Good Luck on your 1st brew!

Haha you and me both, I tend to jump in feet first when I do something, half the fun of it for me is learning something new. Worst case, I sell it. I have done a brew with my buddy and enjoyed it very much, also the wife and I love beer, so most likely I will keep up with this hobby!

 

[soccerguy83]

I always thought the ribcage chiller design looked efficient. I'm curious as to how well/fast it works? The tall boy looks good too. Looks about the right diameter & height for my stove elements & biab.

I will certainly let you know how it goes, I plan on taking temp of the cold water out of the tap, the water exiting, temp at beginning of chill, temp at end of chill, and timing the chill. Will post all of that info.

 

[unionrdr]

Cool. I'm still thinking of building one of those with a secondary that feeds it sitting in ice water.

 

[soccerguy83]

Cool. I'm still thinking of building one of those with a secondary that feeds it sitting in ice water.

That's my next step for summer if the tap water gets too warm to adequately cool a 5 gal batch quickly.

 

[soccerguy83]

Finished up the ferm chamber!

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[soccerguy83]

My first brew day has been set for this coming Saturday! Really looking forward to it. My buddy that I helped brew with is coming over to keep me company and to keep me from doing anything overtly dumb.

Will be brewing a NB Caribou Slobber Extract Kit, full boil.

 

[soccerguy83]

My first Brewday is Saturday!

Tested the fermentation chamber last night and she held temp perfectly! I'm starting to get very excited about Saturday brew day! Picked up my 7gal of distilled water last night and will be picking up my yeast starter tonight from the LHBS. I'm planning on using a vial of RVA Yestlabs, haven't decided on what strain though. Anyone have any thoughts? I'm doing the Caribou Slobber from NB and here is the link to the yeast. Tonight I will also be installing the GFCI outlet in the wall to keep the chamber on GFCI. Tomorrow evening I will be cleaning the kettle, carboy, and misc items.

 

[Gavin C]

Great Looking build on that fermentation chamber. Thanks for sharing the process. Hope brewday goes smoothly for you on Sat. Looks like you're very well prepared.

Best of luck!

 

[soccerguy83]

Thanks Gavin, I feel like I have done my research. Will have one of my brewing buddies over to make sure I don't royally screw up or over look something. But, I'm very much looking forward to it!

 

[soccerguy83]

It's brewday!

 

[Gavin C]

Huzzah!

 

[soccerguy83]

Brewday went really well, I'll post more tomorrow. Had a tough time keeping temps up in the pot so had too keep a lid on it, so I didn't get the boil off that I was expecting so my OG was about 0.008 too low.

All in all had a great day, very tired now though haha.

 

[soccerguy83]

The day started around 10 am with sanitizing my gear (had cleaned it the night before) and getting everything set up and organized. Around 11:30 my buddy came over and we started getting everything started around noon.

We put 6.5 gal of distilled water in the kettle and lit the burner. It took several tries to get it lit as it kept vapor locking for some odd reason. Once lit, we added the specialty grains to steep for 20 mins. After the grains had steeped for 20 mins, they were removed and allowed to drip dry.

I took almost an hour and a half to get up to a boil. We ended up having to put a lid on it to get it to boil. As it was a little windy and only about 41 degrees out yesterday it was putting the bayou burner to it’s limits.

Once boiling, my buddy kept me from adding the 60min hops before the hot break, which was a good thing haha. Went through all the hop additions with no problems. We did have to keep lifting the lid every 45-60 sec to keep from having a boil over.

At five minutes left in the boil, I put in my 50’ 3/8”OD rib-cage chiller. At flameout I hooked up the chiller and started the timer. With 47F tap water and 41F air temp., the chiller was able to cool the wort from boiling to 69F in 13 mins. There was no stirring, just slight agitation by lifting the chiller up and down a couple times twice over the course of the chill.

Aeration was accomplished by using a drill with a paint stirrer. Ran it for about thirty seconds forward, then about 30 seconds backwards and there was a ton of foam!

The wort was then transferred to my 6 gal carboy and the RVA Yeastlabs Pacman was pitched. The carboy was transferred to the fermentation chamber and blow-off tube was attached. The fermentation chamber was set for 18.5C which is just below the mid-point range for the yeast. The temp probe was attached to the side of the carboy and insulated with a couple inches of foam.

This morning I checked on it at 7:00am and we have active fermentation and I actually will need to change the bowl the blow-off tube is in! RVA Yeastlabs is almost like cheating haha!

 

[soccerguy83]

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[RM-MN]

For your next brew, set your controller near the bottom end of the yeast's temperature range. Your ferment will take a bit longer but you likely won't need a blowoff as the ferment will be much slower and with that slower ferment, the yeast will make a cleaner beer.

 

[darylwoodman]

If you are anything like me, my brewery grew so quickly that I kept having to re-engineer everything. If you are an obsessive type, I'd plan ahead and build big and build once.
Cheers.

 

[unionrdr]

I had the same problem. Good thing I took the parlor room for my brewery/man cave. I still had to re-arrange things a couple times.

 

[soccerguy83]

Haha thanks guys, the temp is in the lower half for this yeast (62-72 range Nd I have the controller set at 65F) just RVA Yeastlabs is awesome stuff! I also had more wort than 5 gal so I don't have the head space that most have in the primary, that was due to having the lid on the whole boil.

 

[beergolf]

that was due to having the lid on the whole boil.

OOOPS. That is not good. You need to boil with the lid off to get rid of DMS.

 

[soccerguy83]

Wouldn't boil without the lid on.

 

[soccerguy83]

Well looks like I might have a creamed corn brown ale haha, will still be beer though!

 

[beergolf]

Well looks like I might have a creamed corn brown ale haha, will still be beer though!

Good attitude. it will be a good learning experience. We all have made mistakes and have learned from them.

 

[soccerguy83]

No reason to get fussy over it haha, I have three more brews already here waiting to go!

That and it is beer, can't be but so bad!