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Howdy from Houston TX!

rara

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Hey y'all!  I became interested in brewing when my brother (lives in central California) picked up a brew setup on craigslist.  It was a single tier, 3 vessel system made out of converted kegs with 2 brew pumps.  He had no idea how to brew beer LOL!  His brother in law was an avid home-brewer and told him the deal was a steal and to get it and he would help him learn to brew.  I went home that summer and bought a book about home brewing.  I started to read and pre-maturely decided I wanted to skip extract brewing and start with all grain (against the advice of most).  I patiently scanned craigslist for a single keg that I would be able to do BIAB all grain.  I ended up landing a deal on a 2 tier system (converted kegs) with a single pump.  I added cam locks, and began looking for fridges or freezers I could make in to a keezer.  I build a temp controller.  I tend to overthink everything before even getting started (if you haven't noticed).  I joined a local homebrew club and brewed with one of the vets.  I replicated the brew on my system solo and failed pretty bad.  MyMT ended up clogging and I had no idea what to do.  I called a few friends that brewed and nobody knew what to tell me without being there to see what was going on.  One friend said to use compressed gas to blow the clog out - but I didn't have anything.  I ended up straining all the grain out with a mesh strainer, and putting the unfiltered wort into the boil kettle.  I was pretty pissed and wanted to throw it away, but my buddy from the club said to just move on - it would still make drinkable beer and would be something to grow from.  The gravity was way off (don't remember, but it was waaaay low) and it had a lot of sediment floating around in it (the oats?).  It taste good, but wasn't very alcoholic.  Ugh, now I'm just rambling!  Anyways, I did a two more batches and then found out that my liver enzymes were off the charts.  I quit drinking and haven't brewed in years.  I've started drinking beer on occasion while watching my liver enzymes over the past couple years and seem to be able to handle some beer, just not every day like I used to.  I have a friend that is a beer lover and am thinking about getting my setup out of storage and getting back into brewing with him as my brew assistant.  My overthinking brain is going into overdrive, so I'll probably be posting a lot of newbie questions elsewhere on the forum.  Thanks for listening to my long rant about my adventures in home brewing - I look forward to learning from all the experts here!

Rodney aka Rara (I'll spare you the story behind the nickname lol)
 
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