GHBWNY
Well-Known Member
I know it's totally useless to do so, but after initial boil up from hop addition and settling back down, I have to check on my brew pot at least every 5 minutes. For what? I dunno. Am I worried that the flame will have gone out and it will not be boiling (it's a gas range in my kitchen for cryin' out loud!)? Am I worried it will have decided against all logic and probability to re-boil-over for no reason? With visions of walking into the kitchen to find a half inch of sticky wort flooding the kitchen floor? And subsequently being drawn-and-quartered by my wife? Or here's one: "What if it evaporates? Or boils down to nothing?" Really?
Surely, a lot of you schedule your brewing so you can pull up a chair, sit with a homebrew or two (or 3 or 4) and stare at it for a full hour, but since I usually have other things to do during and right after brewing, that doesn't work. So... I do the 5-minute thing while I'm doing other things. Maybe I'm getting better; maybe it's 6 minutes in between checks.
Anyway, just curious: what's the rule and what's the exception out there for that critical hour when grain and hops become one? Not that it matters --- I'll probably go on checking it every 5 minutes for the rest of my life anyway.
Surely, a lot of you schedule your brewing so you can pull up a chair, sit with a homebrew or two (or 3 or 4) and stare at it for a full hour, but since I usually have other things to do during and right after brewing, that doesn't work. So... I do the 5-minute thing while I'm doing other things. Maybe I'm getting better; maybe it's 6 minutes in between checks.
Anyway, just curious: what's the rule and what's the exception out there for that critical hour when grain and hops become one? Not that it matters --- I'll probably go on checking it every 5 minutes for the rest of my life anyway.