Well after moving house just before xmas and enjoying my last couple of days off I thought stuff it i'll put down a brew. So out to the 3 V system I have set up and into it, or so I thought. Here at my new house I have my setup on the back Alfresco area and yesterday the wind was blowing reasonable hard but not too bad. So smart ass me thought all I need to do is put some sort of wind barrier around my gas burner and she'll be right.
Problem 1. Off to the Hardware to see if they had a bit of sheet metal to wrap around the burner, get into town and find out the bloody shop don't open for half an hour, oh well its only half an hour still plenty of time in the day. When it finally opens get inside no sheet metal, oh well how bad can the wind be and head home.
Problem 2. Kick the brew off by heating up the strike water and go looking for the rest of the ingredients. Grain - check, Hops - check, yeast - yeast ..... **** where's the yeast, no I'm positive I've got some, she'll be right. After washing up some stuff that got dusty in the move time to mash in. So I go out mash in and notice mmmm this wind has picked up a bit and is a bit of a southerly little bit cooler than normal, I think i need to find something for that burner. Set the thermometer in the mash and off to find something to wrap the burner.
Problem 3. Can't find anything to wrap around the burner and the mash tun is struggling to hold temp, oh well she'll be right just start running it through the HERMS coil I've been recently trialling. Kicked off the pump and left to continue search for some sort of wrap by this stage getting pretty pissed off that I haven't found anything but one last spot I found a small piece of aluminium sheet metal beauty this will do the job. Back out to the brew setup mash temp has dropped significantly , what the F#@k is going on with this coil, water in the HLT was 70+ degrees surly it's not loosing 10 degrees between there and the mash tun, oh well it looks like it's starting to come back up she'll be right.
Problem 4. Where's that F%$#en yeast, can't find my US-05 so will have to make do with a few packets of Brigalow yeast and I've come this far I'm not stopping now.****!
Finally after mashing for twice as long as I needed given I forgot to start the timer and I was busy doing other things, finally sparged and started the boil at least the burner kicked off the boil quick. Geez this pump seems to be going slow no just my imagination . Finished the boil and set to cooling off through my parallel counter flow chiller. **** haven't set the hoses up on that yet.
Problem 5. Can't find the f#$2ken hose connections what a day I'm thinking my young fella saves the day and brings me a couple of connections and I start the chill.
I don't know whether or not it's the different water or it was the wind but the chill was done super quick. Anyway into the fermenter and pitch the yeast.
Had a look this morning and it's bubbling away nicely.
Moral of the story - Don't be in too big of a hurry to do a brew make sure you've got everything sorted before you even start heating up the strike water.
When moving to a new house it pays to pick the right spot to brew.
Don't use 2 manifolds( let me explain) I had been up until this time using a stainless braided pipe as my manifold in the mash tun but in trying to get my efficiency up i bought a stainless false bottom, problem yesterday was i had both in the tun at the same time and what happened was the false bottom did a great job of holding back the husks and what not but it let through the very fine particles and they tried to block the braided pipe, hence the slow pump.
Oh and one last thing couldn't find my hydrometer so I have no idea what the numbers were, never used this yeast before so this will be a mystery beer, But I'm gonna drink it out of Spite. :chug:
Norto.
Problem 1. Off to the Hardware to see if they had a bit of sheet metal to wrap around the burner, get into town and find out the bloody shop don't open for half an hour, oh well its only half an hour still plenty of time in the day. When it finally opens get inside no sheet metal, oh well how bad can the wind be and head home.
Problem 2. Kick the brew off by heating up the strike water and go looking for the rest of the ingredients. Grain - check, Hops - check, yeast - yeast ..... **** where's the yeast, no I'm positive I've got some, she'll be right. After washing up some stuff that got dusty in the move time to mash in. So I go out mash in and notice mmmm this wind has picked up a bit and is a bit of a southerly little bit cooler than normal, I think i need to find something for that burner. Set the thermometer in the mash and off to find something to wrap the burner.
Problem 3. Can't find anything to wrap around the burner and the mash tun is struggling to hold temp, oh well she'll be right just start running it through the HERMS coil I've been recently trialling. Kicked off the pump and left to continue search for some sort of wrap by this stage getting pretty pissed off that I haven't found anything but one last spot I found a small piece of aluminium sheet metal beauty this will do the job. Back out to the brew setup mash temp has dropped significantly , what the F#@k is going on with this coil, water in the HLT was 70+ degrees surly it's not loosing 10 degrees between there and the mash tun, oh well it looks like it's starting to come back up she'll be right.
Problem 4. Where's that F%$#en yeast, can't find my US-05 so will have to make do with a few packets of Brigalow yeast and I've come this far I'm not stopping now.****!
Finally after mashing for twice as long as I needed given I forgot to start the timer and I was busy doing other things, finally sparged and started the boil at least the burner kicked off the boil quick. Geez this pump seems to be going slow no just my imagination . Finished the boil and set to cooling off through my parallel counter flow chiller. **** haven't set the hoses up on that yet.
Problem 5. Can't find the f#$2ken hose connections what a day I'm thinking my young fella saves the day and brings me a couple of connections and I start the chill.
I don't know whether or not it's the different water or it was the wind but the chill was done super quick. Anyway into the fermenter and pitch the yeast.
Had a look this morning and it's bubbling away nicely.
Moral of the story - Don't be in too big of a hurry to do a brew make sure you've got everything sorted before you even start heating up the strike water.
When moving to a new house it pays to pick the right spot to brew.
Don't use 2 manifolds( let me explain) I had been up until this time using a stainless braided pipe as my manifold in the mash tun but in trying to get my efficiency up i bought a stainless false bottom, problem yesterday was i had both in the tun at the same time and what happened was the false bottom did a great job of holding back the husks and what not but it let through the very fine particles and they tried to block the braided pipe, hence the slow pump.
Oh and one last thing couldn't find my hydrometer so I have no idea what the numbers were, never used this yeast before so this will be a mystery beer, But I'm gonna drink it out of Spite. :chug:
Norto.
well done on not losing it and giving up!
