Deacon1856
Well-Known Member
Actually, to be more precise, I am still TECHNICALLY making beer. It's cooling to pitching temp as we speak. More on that in a minute.
Let me first say that this was one of the most fun and rewarding experiences I've undertaken in recent years. I mean, for the love of..., come on, I MADE BEER!
To most on this board that is a small thing, but everyone remembers their first as I will remember mine.
Everything for the most part went off without a hitch. Hit my mash temps. Got the right amount of wort for the boil. Boiled down to the right final amount in the time allotted. Everything went GREAT. And then there was the cooling phase...
Without a doubt the most frustrating part of the whole process. I WILL be making adjustments for my next batch. Even with a wort chiller this is taking forever. Not to mention all the water that is run through that thing...I think I may have drowned all the plants in front of my house!
The only hiccup I had in the whole process was in the cooling stage. When I turned on my water to start through the chiller I turned it up a little high and the clamps holding the tubes to the chiller were not tight enough apparently, so water was spraying out. However much could have gotten in the batch in the time it takes me to walk 20 feet is how much hose-water is in my wort. I fixed that problem and started the cooling process.
40 gallons of water dumped on my plants later I've put it in my outdoor fridge. At last check it's at 77. It's almost time to take a reading and pitch that yeast. I'm really interested to see how close to my intended SG I got. I don't think I took enough data down to get my efficiency, but I hit all my other numbers so far, so I feel pretty good about that.
Let me just say this...Hops, even in pellet form, smell like sunshine and butterflies and kittens and puppies and dancing and babies and sugar and spice and EVERYTHING nice. I had no idea. I wonder if it would be a problem if I put them in a little pouch and wore them around my neck. Wonderful.
Soooo....I will be going out to check on the progress in a moment. I'm really looking forward to the gravity reading. Hopefully it's close.
I want to do what every other n00b on the site does after their first brew and say thanks to everyone. This is something I can DEFINITELY see myself doing often. I might even have to build another "son of fermentation chiller". That thing is the cat's ass by the way.
More updates to follow. Just for reference I made EdWort's Pale Ale...just like everyone else. I figure there's got to be something to it if everyone does it, right?!
Deacon
PS - Went to the Ryder Cup yesterday...brewing is much better than the Ryder Cup. At this point anyway. Phil's got bigger boobs, but he don't smell as good! (excuse the KY coming out in me...) - D
Let me first say that this was one of the most fun and rewarding experiences I've undertaken in recent years. I mean, for the love of..., come on, I MADE BEER!
To most on this board that is a small thing, but everyone remembers their first as I will remember mine.
Everything for the most part went off without a hitch. Hit my mash temps. Got the right amount of wort for the boil. Boiled down to the right final amount in the time allotted. Everything went GREAT. And then there was the cooling phase...
Without a doubt the most frustrating part of the whole process. I WILL be making adjustments for my next batch. Even with a wort chiller this is taking forever. Not to mention all the water that is run through that thing...I think I may have drowned all the plants in front of my house!
The only hiccup I had in the whole process was in the cooling stage. When I turned on my water to start through the chiller I turned it up a little high and the clamps holding the tubes to the chiller were not tight enough apparently, so water was spraying out. However much could have gotten in the batch in the time it takes me to walk 20 feet is how much hose-water is in my wort. I fixed that problem and started the cooling process.
40 gallons of water dumped on my plants later I've put it in my outdoor fridge. At last check it's at 77. It's almost time to take a reading and pitch that yeast. I'm really interested to see how close to my intended SG I got. I don't think I took enough data down to get my efficiency, but I hit all my other numbers so far, so I feel pretty good about that.
Let me just say this...Hops, even in pellet form, smell like sunshine and butterflies and kittens and puppies and dancing and babies and sugar and spice and EVERYTHING nice. I had no idea. I wonder if it would be a problem if I put them in a little pouch and wore them around my neck. Wonderful.
Soooo....I will be going out to check on the progress in a moment. I'm really looking forward to the gravity reading. Hopefully it's close.
I want to do what every other n00b on the site does after their first brew and say thanks to everyone. This is something I can DEFINITELY see myself doing often. I might even have to build another "son of fermentation chiller". That thing is the cat's ass by the way.
More updates to follow. Just for reference I made EdWort's Pale Ale...just like everyone else. I figure there's got to be something to it if everyone does it, right?!
Deacon
PS - Went to the Ryder Cup yesterday...brewing is much better than the Ryder Cup. At this point anyway. Phil's got bigger boobs, but he don't smell as good! (excuse the KY coming out in me...) - D