SJW
As you must brew, so you must drink
- Joined
- 10/3/04
- Messages
- 3,401
- Reaction score
- 211
As some may or may not know I have had a break from drinking beer and in turn has lead to a break in brewing. Notwithstanding, I dropped into MHB last week and picked up 6kgs of Premium Pils and though I would just do a basic one malt/one hop Lager.
So Friday night I dusted off the brewery and got everything ready for the historic return for Saturday morning. I filled the HLT up at about 11pm and set the timer for it to come on for 90mins Saturday morning so I can get into it nice and early.
Well I stumbled down stairs and out the back at 8am Saturday to find water everywhere. I will save all the details but it was a bloody mess. What happend was the timer had come on during the night and boiled the HLT dry. When my HLT boils it bubbles out the sight tube. Anyway, I did have some luck though. While this was going on the plug to the HLT hot hot and melted a bit and I guess some water got in the socket and tripped the circuit prbably saving the house from burning down.
So I spend all Saturday morning cleaning up. To my surprise the HLT element still works. So I prepared for a second attempt for Sunday Morning, without using a timer.
Sunday. Filled the HLT up only to find that the site tube had a crack in it. So I fixed that. The the fitting were leaking at the tee between the sight glass and tap. Fixed that.
So I got brewing thinking all was swell. Then the March pump was making a real loud noise. So I pulled that apart and was all full of those mud wasp nest. Fixed that. Then Stuck Sparge.......running off way too fast. Fixed that.
Finally got it into the kettle and thought..........."with a sigle hop addition for 60mins I can take my daughter for a double on the motorbike". (she has been at me for weeks)
And on my return, yes you guessed...............I had run out of gas. So going by the evaporation rate I was able to sort that.
But in the end I got a brew in the fridge to ferment. All I need now is for the yeast not to fire or an infection.
Happy Brewing <_<
Steve
So Friday night I dusted off the brewery and got everything ready for the historic return for Saturday morning. I filled the HLT up at about 11pm and set the timer for it to come on for 90mins Saturday morning so I can get into it nice and early.
Well I stumbled down stairs and out the back at 8am Saturday to find water everywhere. I will save all the details but it was a bloody mess. What happend was the timer had come on during the night and boiled the HLT dry. When my HLT boils it bubbles out the sight tube. Anyway, I did have some luck though. While this was going on the plug to the HLT hot hot and melted a bit and I guess some water got in the socket and tripped the circuit prbably saving the house from burning down.
So I spend all Saturday morning cleaning up. To my surprise the HLT element still works. So I prepared for a second attempt for Sunday Morning, without using a timer.
Sunday. Filled the HLT up only to find that the site tube had a crack in it. So I fixed that. The the fitting were leaking at the tee between the sight glass and tap. Fixed that.
So I got brewing thinking all was swell. Then the March pump was making a real loud noise. So I pulled that apart and was all full of those mud wasp nest. Fixed that. Then Stuck Sparge.......running off way too fast. Fixed that.
Finally got it into the kettle and thought..........."with a sigle hop addition for 60mins I can take my daughter for a double on the motorbike". (she has been at me for weeks)
And on my return, yes you guessed...............I had run out of gas. So going by the evaporation rate I was able to sort that.
But in the end I got a brew in the fridge to ferment. All I need now is for the yeast not to fire or an infection.
Happy Brewing <_<
Steve
