Hi!
Just thought id share my 1st all grain brew experience with everyone!
Before this brew day my brewing experience was; 1 extract brew on a kit bought from local home brew store, loved it so started building a 3V rig!
I've been slowly building the rig over the last 3 months and after giving the wife and boy plenty of notice, this Sat i finally got to use it!
I was probably a week premature as i still had some prep work to do on sat morning before i even started brewing. I had to;
Assemble all the gear outside on the porch
Teflon tape-up the ss fittings
Test run rig with water to check for leaks!
Notch some 10litre interval marks on my ss stirring spoon with a hacksaw, so i know how much water/beer i have in the kegs!
Go to local hom brew shop to pick up ingredients!
Make 2 pick up tubes by screwing spare hose tails into bulk heads in MT and BK and fixing 2 short lengths of silicone tube
....A long day ahead!
I brewed an american IPA recipe from 'brewing classic styles', 'hoppiness is an IPA'
During recirculation of the wort i suddenly remembered to take some film and took a very rushed, dodgy, short video on my phone, see here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoM-D1aO5_0&feature=em-upload_owner
I started brewing at around midday and had a (lot!) of problems throughout the day! See below for a laugh at my expense!
I only put 23l of strike water in to the mash tun instead of 27, realised 15 mins into the mash and added more!
Was tricky initially to work out what temp temp i needed in the HLT to give the correct temp in the MT (copper coil is small so realised through trial and error that i needed 72 deg C to achieve 65 deg C in MT
BK valve sprung a small leak as i was transferring wort from MT, during sparge - had to finish transferring it, whilst draining all water from the HLT, then quickly transferred wort in to the HLT to boil! Lost approx 2l of wort!
Hadn't thought through the 'whirlpool' technique properly and i tried to empty the boil kettle into the fermenter WHILST WHIRLPOOLING (!!!), and with my silicone pick up tube sucking up all the hops and break up from the centre of the BK!!! Doh! i realised straight away but it was too late! Couldn't believe i had been so daft!
Misread recipe and added the 60min hops at 0 mins! Doh!
And my copper coil was too small so only cooled the wort to around 40 deg C, which is still pretty good for the size of the home made coil, i did wait till it was the correct temp before pitching the yeast.
After sanitising the hell out of the fermenter and transfer tube, i sucked a small amount of tap water from the air valve in to the fermenter with the wort! not sure if this will spoil the beer, i guess i'll find out!
It took a long, long time, but i really enjoyed the experience it and i feel proud that i pulled it off - though i know i am yet to taste the beer!
I am really glad i did it as i know i have learnt 1st hand from all the mistakes that i made on this first run!
Anyway, thanks if you take the time to read this, please post some advice if you have some to offer!
Cheers,
Mark
Just thought id share my 1st all grain brew experience with everyone!
Before this brew day my brewing experience was; 1 extract brew on a kit bought from local home brew store, loved it so started building a 3V rig!
I've been slowly building the rig over the last 3 months and after giving the wife and boy plenty of notice, this Sat i finally got to use it!
I was probably a week premature as i still had some prep work to do on sat morning before i even started brewing. I had to;
Assemble all the gear outside on the porch
Teflon tape-up the ss fittings
Test run rig with water to check for leaks!
Notch some 10litre interval marks on my ss stirring spoon with a hacksaw, so i know how much water/beer i have in the kegs!
Go to local hom brew shop to pick up ingredients!
Make 2 pick up tubes by screwing spare hose tails into bulk heads in MT and BK and fixing 2 short lengths of silicone tube
....A long day ahead!
I brewed an american IPA recipe from 'brewing classic styles', 'hoppiness is an IPA'
During recirculation of the wort i suddenly remembered to take some film and took a very rushed, dodgy, short video on my phone, see here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoM-D1aO5_0&feature=em-upload_owner
I started brewing at around midday and had a (lot!) of problems throughout the day! See below for a laugh at my expense!
I only put 23l of strike water in to the mash tun instead of 27, realised 15 mins into the mash and added more!
Was tricky initially to work out what temp temp i needed in the HLT to give the correct temp in the MT (copper coil is small so realised through trial and error that i needed 72 deg C to achieve 65 deg C in MT
BK valve sprung a small leak as i was transferring wort from MT, during sparge - had to finish transferring it, whilst draining all water from the HLT, then quickly transferred wort in to the HLT to boil! Lost approx 2l of wort!
Hadn't thought through the 'whirlpool' technique properly and i tried to empty the boil kettle into the fermenter WHILST WHIRLPOOLING (!!!), and with my silicone pick up tube sucking up all the hops and break up from the centre of the BK!!! Doh! i realised straight away but it was too late! Couldn't believe i had been so daft!
Misread recipe and added the 60min hops at 0 mins! Doh!
And my copper coil was too small so only cooled the wort to around 40 deg C, which is still pretty good for the size of the home made coil, i did wait till it was the correct temp before pitching the yeast.
After sanitising the hell out of the fermenter and transfer tube, i sucked a small amount of tap water from the air valve in to the fermenter with the wort! not sure if this will spoil the beer, i guess i'll find out!
It took a long, long time, but i really enjoyed the experience it and i feel proud that i pulled it off - though i know i am yet to taste the beer!
I am really glad i did it as i know i have learnt 1st hand from all the mistakes that i made on this first run!
Anyway, thanks if you take the time to read this, please post some advice if you have some to offer!
Cheers,
Mark
