Why am I reinventing the wheel?

[Grossy]

Why am I reinventing the wheel?

So here is my request, I would love to hear from you guys on what are your processes, what has simplified your beer brewing, and yet still produces great results.

I am on my 4th batch of beer, so far no real problems and I am quite please with the results, but my process of brewing keeps changing, I expected this.

This week I decided to do a partial boil and then add 2.5 gallons of refrigerated cold bottled water to get the temp down, worked great. The temp went from 210 to 125 degrees immediately, I figured this was a great way to avoid DMS build up without the hassle of the immersion chiller. (read below why the wort chiller is a pain)

Poured it all into the fermenter, sealed it up, placed it in the fridg, 8 hours later it was down to 75 degrees, hydrated and pitched the yeast, everything is going great.

Today, I read that full boils produce better beer than partial boils!
(So much for the great idea of using cold bottle water to avoid using the immersion chiller.)

Basically I am making decisions that you guys have most likely tried and discarded already, I am reinventing the wheel.


Ps: Why the immersion chiller is a pain.
I live in Tucson AZ, yesterday it was 108, the cold water from the tap is a 100 degrees. So the only way to get the immersion chiller to work is 40 lbs of ice in an ice chest and pump it through the immersion chiller. It’s expensive.

 

[jaycount]

Yeah you may want to look into investing in a pre-chiller, it's the setup you described: faucet -> pre-chiller (its a smaller immersion chiller in a cooler with ice water) -> full size immersion chiller (it's in the pot).

Full boils are better because you get better hop utilization and you get a more accurate gravity reading at the end (no concern of mixing the top up water in). You can still make good beer with partial boils though...

And trust me, your brewing process will continue to change, as I change my style of brewing and equipment it seems like every brew session is a new adventure

 

[Grossy]

Here is my basic process (revised), times are recipe dependant and not included.

1. My tap water in undrinkable, use only bottle water.
2. Hydrate yeast at 85 degrees, allow to slowly cool to 75 degrees.
3. Heat 5.5 gallons of water to 155 degrees
4. Steep grains
5. Uncover kettle and boil,
   
   add DME,​
   add hops.​
6. Place IC in the boil for 15 min prior to completion of boil.
7. Top off to 5 gallons.
8. Chill wort to 75 degrees.
9. Aerate wort.
   
   Pour wort into Ale pale.​
   Pour wort back into kettle.​
   Pour wort into Ale pale.​
   So much foam is made, this can almost produce a “boil over”​
10. Pitch yeast.
11. Place Ale pale into fermentation chamber and maintain 70 degrees for 3 weeks.
12. Bottle and condition beer for 3 weeks.
13. Place in fridge for 5 days.
14. Drink.

 

[Sardoman]

I have also changed my process over time and have dealt with the high groundwater temp. issue. The most common reason for people to not do a full boil is that either their kettle is too small or they are boiling on the stovetop and can't get more than 3-4gal boiling with the natural gas burners. If you are in the same situation, then I'd recommend trying a waterbath chill first, followed by an ice bath chill.

Cooling your wort with chilled top-off water increases the thermal mass of the liquid, so that while it gets your temps down quickly from boiling (good) it makes it more difficult to get down to pitching temp.

Putting your pot of boiling wort directly into an icebath wastes ice. You can easily knock 50+ degrees off using the (hot) groundwater, then add ice to get temps down close to pitching temp.

Add the cooled top-off water once you're down close to the pitching temp and you're good to go. I used this technique for a long time when I didn't have a chiller. It works great. Alternatively you can use the prechiller and that would allow you to do full boils. You could start with tap water then add ice to the prechiller. It would accomplish the same thing with about the same amount of ice but requires more equipment.