Brew day started out just fine yesterday. Started around 6PM, which gave me enough time to finish up around 10, it being an extract brew. Pulled the ingredients, found a grain bag after about ten minutes of searching, fired up the propane stove for the second time, it's first brewday though, and sat the kettle on it to get it to steeping temp. That was the last time anything went right for a while.
First thing to go sideways was my hops, actually. I have a small folding table that I used to put all the ingredients on. I had just measured out my hops with our kitchen scale and I tossed the first 3lb bag of dry malt extract onto the table. Bad move. The bag made the table legs compress, then they rebounded and knocked half of my Warrior hops onto the ground. It was really stupid, but in the end not terribly surprising. I salvaged them as much I could and continued onto the steeping.
After cresting 150F I dumped the regulator to low heat, put the grain bag in, tied it to the handle and watched the steeping in action. I think it is fun to observe the process of brewing, and to see how each step develops. Seven minutes into the twenty minute steep the flame went out unexpectedly. Did I mention I had only tested this burner, and this is the first brew day? It will also be the last for this setup. I decided to wait and see how long the pot would hold the heat. I hit 155F before flameout and turns out that 6 gallons of water in 55F ambient air and 73% humidity will cool to 149F in about five to seven minutes. I took the pot off (not the last time) to relight the flame and got it back to 153 or so for the remainder.
After steeping I took the grain bag out, put the burner on high and waited about 15 minutes until boil. After reaching boil the pot was removed and the DME was stirred in. Pot was put back on the burner, returned to boil and the first half of the (remaining) Warrior hops were put in. The flame went out about seven minutes into the second boil. Took the pot off, relit the flame and put the pot back on. Flameout. Took the pot back off, relit the flame, and maneuvered the little temp probe that operates the emergency shutoff valve so it was in the flame. I got another ten minutes of boil out of that. Flameout. This happened nearly a dozen times and I was only able to net about twenty-five minutes of boil, over the course of an hour. Each flameout cost me about four to five minutes just because of the massive drop in stored energy of the water. It is very obvious why it can takes a lot of energy to boil even a relatively small volume of water.
I sat dejectedly on my porch steps and contemplated throwing out the batch and cleaning up. I was PO'd at the burner and at myself for not buying a reputable burner, that was going to cost me almost $50 in ingredients. But after sitting a minute I decided to do the only thing I could do to finish the job: hold open the safety valve manually. I relit the flame and proceeded to hold the valve open, only getting up once in 35 minutes (which necessitated me relighting the flame).
I was over an hour past my time, and I hadn't done any prep to the equipment or the fermenter. I dropped the kettle in the water, dumped three bags of ice in the water then ran inside to prep the carboy and the transfer equipment.
The one of the two things I did do right, was I had brought the yeast out of the fridge at 6, and it was ready to go at this point.
I cleaned up the carboy, got my test cylinder and hydrometer out, finished cooling the wort, transferred the test into the cylinder, and the rest to the carboy. The second thing I did right was to put in six gallons for my five gallon batch. Even at 73% humidity I lost a little over a gallon. I may have topped off a couple pints to the carboy. I finally got to smack the pacman, shook and pitched, dried a stopper and stopped up the carboy. Somewhere around this time I knocked over the test cylinder I had sitting on my counter to allow the trub to settle. All the wort was on the floor and the cylinder made a perfect landing onto my kettle's sight glass. I later found out I chipped and cracked the cylinder. Sight glass was OK though.
Due to losing my sample I had to pull out the stopper on the fermenter and shove my recently sanitized siphon to get another sample (yooper's DFH clone @1.075, hope the yeast survive!), reinstalled the stopper and pushed it through INTO THE CARBOY! I sanitized a second stopper, it blew off onto the floor, resanitize it, secure it with zip ties, clean up, then proceed to fall asleep on the couch watching my wife play Fallout 4.
Batch number six, in the books.
First thing to go sideways was my hops, actually. I have a small folding table that I used to put all the ingredients on. I had just measured out my hops with our kitchen scale and I tossed the first 3lb bag of dry malt extract onto the table. Bad move. The bag made the table legs compress, then they rebounded and knocked half of my Warrior hops onto the ground. It was really stupid, but in the end not terribly surprising. I salvaged them as much I could and continued onto the steeping.
After cresting 150F I dumped the regulator to low heat, put the grain bag in, tied it to the handle and watched the steeping in action. I think it is fun to observe the process of brewing, and to see how each step develops. Seven minutes into the twenty minute steep the flame went out unexpectedly. Did I mention I had only tested this burner, and this is the first brew day? It will also be the last for this setup. I decided to wait and see how long the pot would hold the heat. I hit 155F before flameout and turns out that 6 gallons of water in 55F ambient air and 73% humidity will cool to 149F in about five to seven minutes. I took the pot off (not the last time) to relight the flame and got it back to 153 or so for the remainder.
After steeping I took the grain bag out, put the burner on high and waited about 15 minutes until boil. After reaching boil the pot was removed and the DME was stirred in. Pot was put back on the burner, returned to boil and the first half of the (remaining) Warrior hops were put in. The flame went out about seven minutes into the second boil. Took the pot off, relit the flame and put the pot back on. Flameout. Took the pot back off, relit the flame, and maneuvered the little temp probe that operates the emergency shutoff valve so it was in the flame. I got another ten minutes of boil out of that. Flameout. This happened nearly a dozen times and I was only able to net about twenty-five minutes of boil, over the course of an hour. Each flameout cost me about four to five minutes just because of the massive drop in stored energy of the water. It is very obvious why it can takes a lot of energy to boil even a relatively small volume of water.
I sat dejectedly on my porch steps and contemplated throwing out the batch and cleaning up. I was PO'd at the burner and at myself for not buying a reputable burner, that was going to cost me almost $50 in ingredients. But after sitting a minute I decided to do the only thing I could do to finish the job: hold open the safety valve manually. I relit the flame and proceeded to hold the valve open, only getting up once in 35 minutes (which necessitated me relighting the flame).
I was over an hour past my time, and I hadn't done any prep to the equipment or the fermenter. I dropped the kettle in the water, dumped three bags of ice in the water then ran inside to prep the carboy and the transfer equipment.
The one of the two things I did do right, was I had brought the yeast out of the fridge at 6, and it was ready to go at this point.
I cleaned up the carboy, got my test cylinder and hydrometer out, finished cooling the wort, transferred the test into the cylinder, and the rest to the carboy. The second thing I did right was to put in six gallons for my five gallon batch. Even at 73% humidity I lost a little over a gallon. I may have topped off a couple pints to the carboy. I finally got to smack the pacman, shook and pitched, dried a stopper and stopped up the carboy. Somewhere around this time I knocked over the test cylinder I had sitting on my counter to allow the trub to settle. All the wort was on the floor and the cylinder made a perfect landing onto my kettle's sight glass. I later found out I chipped and cracked the cylinder. Sight glass was OK though.
Due to losing my sample I had to pull out the stopper on the fermenter and shove my recently sanitized siphon to get another sample (yooper's DFH clone @1.075, hope the yeast survive!), reinstalled the stopper and pushed it through INTO THE CARBOY! I sanitized a second stopper, it blew off onto the floor, resanitize it, secure it with zip ties, clean up, then proceed to fall asleep on the couch watching my wife play Fallout 4.
Batch number six, in the books.
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