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My son was on his third beer and was sharing his bottled homebrews. Not too bad but not really inspiring enough to make me get started. It seemed like a lot of work without enough reward with cleaning all the bottles and refilling. Si I was at a friends home on day this spring and he said he was brewing to and poured me a glass of sweetmalty hoppy foamy beer that made my eye's open to the possibilities... The major difference was he was kegging into a cornny keg and pushing with c02. This got my attention. Problem is my latest sales were slow and the budget was very very low. But I went to Northern Brewers and bought a kit anyway knowing I could Find a Keg to put it in...somehow. I figured I would be able to brew it at my son,s and such. Well months later he was unable to get it brewing and in the meantime my friend kept talking about all of the tech parts of it. Fortunately for me he is a commercial refer guy with some accounts and some parts for kegging just fell in his lap, which he passed to me. I bought the necessary lines and connectors and next thing I know eh had a set of gages and a full c02 tank in my garage. I find a small freezer on Craig's list and figured to control the temp with a walk in cooler temp control. (it fell of the back of his truck). It was used and I had to wire it in and mount the thing but it worked after some adjustment. By this time I cooked the kit in a 30 gal pot he bought from northern and in the meantime he made a wort chiller. All in a month.
I brewed the Bavarian Hefe and bought a 5 gal plastic bottle from a water bottling truck. Stopper and airlock in hand the mad scientist goes to work.
My first beer...MY FIRST BEER I dump in a extra cup of brown sugar and bought both the liquid yeast and a dry pac. (no idea what I am doing) just seems like a good idea since I know the byproduct. For the next three weeks this concoction bubbled steady and I'm wondering when's it gonna stop. I find another Brew supply shop and start asking questions and he says "please just let it go".
He turns me on to Palmers book. I had already found the on-line version but this I could take with me and also let my friend read it some. (he was only on his third brew). Still on a low budget I am well on my way. I learn about all the sanitizing and do all my brewing in my garage and cleaning in the shower in the lower level. I rack the hefe and proceed to learn about carbonating.. the hard way.
After losing most of the beer to foam from over carbonating I git it about right one night constantly sampling to see the results. Results was I got really hammered and could not swallow the foam down. You had to be there to understand but I am still laughing. Had to purge the foam to get to bed that night.
I quickly bought another kit. A pilsner mix and a 6 gallon ferminting bucket. On my credit card and proceeded to brew another batch (since I mostly drank up the Hefe) and got it ferminting. Everyone who sampled the Hefe loved it. This was another learning experience kegging. I left the tank on it at about 35 lbs over night and somehow the beer escaped into the bottom of the cooler. About a half a gallon or so. More reading. Back to northern brewers and bought a kit called "tongue splitter" . 2 ounces of cascade, one oz of glacier, one of nugget and one of liberty all at different times. I steeped the specialty grains in too hot a pot (I learned later) and this is still in a keg. Ya know there's hops in this one. I needed something to offset it so I bought a Octoberfest that fermented in the bucket for a week and I transferred it to the plastic 5 gallon bottle for a week. It cleared and I racked it today into a second Corney keg I picked up for $23.00. In the mean time I was working on building a Lauder tun on a budget. Found a clean cooler as a estate sale for $4.00. Bought a valve, poked a hole in the cooler and attached some SS screen to a fitting on the inside. My buddie had just brewed his second all grain in his home made tun. He chose to siphon it with copper tubing filter he made. It's all his fault ya know. Bad influence. He bought a 55lb bag of 2row and put 8 lbs in a plastic pale for me. Here's where things get sticky.
I used a lb of crystal 60, a lb of Munich. I lautered them separately and left the grains in the cooler bottom. Dumped in the 2row and sparged with 165 degree water. Keep in mind I have taken in a lot of information and don't have it all straight yet. That's why I am here.
I have done a lot of reading today here and decided to share this little experience.
My water is township well about 60ppm hardness. The water had some iron in it because of the line purging that had just been don done in the neighborhood so I boiled it good before dumping it in the tun @ about 165f. I had already sparged the specialty grains and the cooler was still warm as well as the grain. the 2row was probably about 65f and after adding the water I took a mash temp of about 145. It seemed to be too low so I had another 2 qrts added at about 165. I let it sit for about 45 minutes and drained it into the pot. It tasted very sweet and good. I batch sparged a second time @ 65f to fill up to about 24 quaarts in the pot. I was a lot clearer this time.
The work was nice and foamy. I forgot to take a OG at this time. I boiled it added a oz of leaf cascade for a 60 minute boil and two oz'z of Northern Brewers pellets at 20 minutes. I used Beersmith to estimate a bitterness of about 48.
After cooling and filtering I took a OG of 1.052 in my ferminting bucket. I dumped a dated 6month old wyeast of britt 1068 right out of the pac. It did not smell exactly right. Now if you have read this far I thank you. Here's the trouble. Up to now I was ferminting in the lower shower room at about 68-70 degrees f. I thought I could leave this batch in the garage which I saw at least 55-60 degrees.
24 hours and it's not ferminting at all. I rut to the supplyer and sprinkle in some safeale 05. The next morning.. still quiet. I forgot to mention this but all those other batches i harvested a bunch of yeast in jars in the refer and put in about two ounces of yeast from a batch I felt should have some active yeast in it. that next day It's still not bubbling. It does smell a bit like alcohol but no kroiseing. I decided to bring it into the shower and I watch it all day. There is some c02 if I push on the lid but it still is quiet so i get the spoon out.
After stirring it seems to be bubbling on its own like it should have all along. So what was it? The temp? The old yeast? The hard Iron water? The relatively high OG for all grain? I forgot to mention I dumped a cup of Turbinado sugar in the wart while cooking and since I had all this unused priming sugar I dumped 4oz of that in there as well. It's bubbling now about every 6 seconds. Is this brew going to come and eat me in the middle of the night? It is close to Halloween
I brewed the Bavarian Hefe and bought a 5 gal plastic bottle from a water bottling truck. Stopper and airlock in hand the mad scientist goes to work.
My first beer...MY FIRST BEER I dump in a extra cup of brown sugar and bought both the liquid yeast and a dry pac. (no idea what I am doing) just seems like a good idea since I know the byproduct. For the next three weeks this concoction bubbled steady and I'm wondering when's it gonna stop. I find another Brew supply shop and start asking questions and he says "please just let it go".
He turns me on to Palmers book. I had already found the on-line version but this I could take with me and also let my friend read it some. (he was only on his third brew). Still on a low budget I am well on my way. I learn about all the sanitizing and do all my brewing in my garage and cleaning in the shower in the lower level. I rack the hefe and proceed to learn about carbonating.. the hard way.
After losing most of the beer to foam from over carbonating I git it about right one night constantly sampling to see the results. Results was I got really hammered and could not swallow the foam down. You had to be there to understand but I am still laughing. Had to purge the foam to get to bed that night.
I quickly bought another kit. A pilsner mix and a 6 gallon ferminting bucket. On my credit card and proceeded to brew another batch (since I mostly drank up the Hefe) and got it ferminting. Everyone who sampled the Hefe loved it. This was another learning experience kegging. I left the tank on it at about 35 lbs over night and somehow the beer escaped into the bottom of the cooler. About a half a gallon or so. More reading. Back to northern brewers and bought a kit called "tongue splitter" . 2 ounces of cascade, one oz of glacier, one of nugget and one of liberty all at different times. I steeped the specialty grains in too hot a pot (I learned later) and this is still in a keg. Ya know there's hops in this one. I needed something to offset it so I bought a Octoberfest that fermented in the bucket for a week and I transferred it to the plastic 5 gallon bottle for a week. It cleared and I racked it today into a second Corney keg I picked up for $23.00. In the mean time I was working on building a Lauder tun on a budget. Found a clean cooler as a estate sale for $4.00. Bought a valve, poked a hole in the cooler and attached some SS screen to a fitting on the inside. My buddie had just brewed his second all grain in his home made tun. He chose to siphon it with copper tubing filter he made. It's all his fault ya know. Bad influence. He bought a 55lb bag of 2row and put 8 lbs in a plastic pale for me. Here's where things get sticky.
I used a lb of crystal 60, a lb of Munich. I lautered them separately and left the grains in the cooler bottom. Dumped in the 2row and sparged with 165 degree water. Keep in mind I have taken in a lot of information and don't have it all straight yet. That's why I am here.
I have done a lot of reading today here and decided to share this little experience.
My water is township well about 60ppm hardness. The water had some iron in it because of the line purging that had just been don done in the neighborhood so I boiled it good before dumping it in the tun @ about 165f. I had already sparged the specialty grains and the cooler was still warm as well as the grain. the 2row was probably about 65f and after adding the water I took a mash temp of about 145. It seemed to be too low so I had another 2 qrts added at about 165. I let it sit for about 45 minutes and drained it into the pot. It tasted very sweet and good. I batch sparged a second time @ 65f to fill up to about 24 quaarts in the pot. I was a lot clearer this time.
The work was nice and foamy. I forgot to take a OG at this time. I boiled it added a oz of leaf cascade for a 60 minute boil and two oz'z of Northern Brewers pellets at 20 minutes. I used Beersmith to estimate a bitterness of about 48.
After cooling and filtering I took a OG of 1.052 in my ferminting bucket. I dumped a dated 6month old wyeast of britt 1068 right out of the pac. It did not smell exactly right. Now if you have read this far I thank you. Here's the trouble. Up to now I was ferminting in the lower shower room at about 68-70 degrees f. I thought I could leave this batch in the garage which I saw at least 55-60 degrees.
24 hours and it's not ferminting at all. I rut to the supplyer and sprinkle in some safeale 05. The next morning.. still quiet. I forgot to mention this but all those other batches i harvested a bunch of yeast in jars in the refer and put in about two ounces of yeast from a batch I felt should have some active yeast in it. that next day It's still not bubbling. It does smell a bit like alcohol but no kroiseing. I decided to bring it into the shower and I watch it all day. There is some c02 if I push on the lid but it still is quiet so i get the spoon out.
After stirring it seems to be bubbling on its own like it should have all along. So what was it? The temp? The old yeast? The hard Iron water? The relatively high OG for all grain? I forgot to mention I dumped a cup of Turbinado sugar in the wart while cooking and since I had all this unused priming sugar I dumped 4oz of that in there as well. It's bubbling now about every 6 seconds. Is this brew going to come and eat me in the middle of the night? It is close to Halloween
