Did my first Brew last night and I had very high expectations. Turns out that my expectations were kinda like the guys that built the Hindenburg... my first brew was a disaster.
All of my reading and watching youtube vids had me thinking that this was going to be a cakewalk, I was thinking that all you needed to do to be a brewmaster was master the art of boiling water. So I thought I'd do an extract Ale to start it off because kits are for woosies right? Got everything set up next to the outdoor burner and the first thing that happened was a violent Thunderstorm drenched my whole project. So during a violent thunderstorm I'm moving all of the stuff to the garage. Worse part about that was seeing my wife watching and shakiing her head with a SEG on her face (I've seen that look many times in our 30 years of marriage).
I've converted a big round cooler into a mash tun with the washing machine braided hose as my manifold and it didn't work at all. I only had 3lbs of grain so I never got it to cover the manifold! Everything I read said that I should start with a water temp of 168 to get my mash to 156 so that's what I did. But when I pored the water in I could only get it to 143. So I continued pooring hot water in but the temp wouldn't move. So I increased the temp of the water to boiling temp and kept adding water... it stayed at 143. Turns out my digital thermometer was broken and was all over the place with it's readings. And I was supposed to add some dried malt extract at the end but either my local brewstore didn't include that or they added it into the grain... who knows?
The boil went pretty uneventful. But at the end when added some liquid malt extract my thermometer went from 211 to 258 (This is when I started suspecting that my thermometer was bad). But it was a pretty serious freek out time for me because I didn't know if it was getting ready to go into a full boilover or what.
The cooling phase went OK even though the ice bath in the kitchen sink is a royal pain in my butt. It was an even bigger pain when my wife came upstairs and questioned whether the disastrous mess I was making was justified. "Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just go buy your beer at the store instead of messing up my kitchen" was mentioned more than once.
Racking it to the secondary would have gone better if the poring valve hadn't been in open when I pored it in but I only lost about 12oz on the garage floor. But I pitched the yeast and have it in a bathtub in one of our bathrooms. I'm getting bubbling (about 3 bubbles every 7 seconds). Problem is that my hydrometer only read 1.030 at 75 degrees when it should be 1.054. I guess with all of the problems I had I'm lucky to have anything.
So it looks like my first attempt at brewing is going to be swampwater. Positive thing about that is that it can only get better. I've ordered a false bottom this morning so hopefully my next extract will go much better. I'm thinking that my next brew is going to be from a kit until I get my system down a little better. lol
Maddog Mike
All of my reading and watching youtube vids had me thinking that this was going to be a cakewalk, I was thinking that all you needed to do to be a brewmaster was master the art of boiling water. So I thought I'd do an extract Ale to start it off because kits are for woosies right? Got everything set up next to the outdoor burner and the first thing that happened was a violent Thunderstorm drenched my whole project. So during a violent thunderstorm I'm moving all of the stuff to the garage. Worse part about that was seeing my wife watching and shakiing her head with a SEG on her face (I've seen that look many times in our 30 years of marriage).
I've converted a big round cooler into a mash tun with the washing machine braided hose as my manifold and it didn't work at all. I only had 3lbs of grain so I never got it to cover the manifold! Everything I read said that I should start with a water temp of 168 to get my mash to 156 so that's what I did. But when I pored the water in I could only get it to 143. So I continued pooring hot water in but the temp wouldn't move. So I increased the temp of the water to boiling temp and kept adding water... it stayed at 143. Turns out my digital thermometer was broken and was all over the place with it's readings. And I was supposed to add some dried malt extract at the end but either my local brewstore didn't include that or they added it into the grain... who knows?
The boil went pretty uneventful. But at the end when added some liquid malt extract my thermometer went from 211 to 258 (This is when I started suspecting that my thermometer was bad). But it was a pretty serious freek out time for me because I didn't know if it was getting ready to go into a full boilover or what.
The cooling phase went OK even though the ice bath in the kitchen sink is a royal pain in my butt. It was an even bigger pain when my wife came upstairs and questioned whether the disastrous mess I was making was justified. "Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just go buy your beer at the store instead of messing up my kitchen" was mentioned more than once.
Racking it to the secondary would have gone better if the poring valve hadn't been in open when I pored it in but I only lost about 12oz on the garage floor. But I pitched the yeast and have it in a bathtub in one of our bathrooms. I'm getting bubbling (about 3 bubbles every 7 seconds). Problem is that my hydrometer only read 1.030 at 75 degrees when it should be 1.054. I guess with all of the problems I had I'm lucky to have anything.
So it looks like my first attempt at brewing is going to be swampwater. Positive thing about that is that it can only get better. I've ordered a false bottom this morning so hopefully my next extract will go much better. I'm thinking that my next brew is going to be from a kit until I get my system down a little better. lol
Maddog Mike
