Saturday, July 09, 2005
The big(ger) brew...
Well, I brewed 10 gallons today with my new 14 gallon kettle. It was great. Did take longer than a 5 gallon session, purely because of the extra time to heat up more water. I probably could have cranked the burner and fixed that little issue. I also mashed for 90 minute instead of 60 because the water/grain ratio was 0.95 - Was necessary for my extra mash-out infusion. Some comical highlights of the day (all of which were learning experiences).
At any rate, the yeast is pitched and I've got them sitting on my concrete basement floor to act like a heat sink... I hope. At last count the temperature was down to 77 in the fermenters, so it is working... I just hope it continues to before the fermentation heat kicks in and knocks it back up.
I'm pooped. Time to go sit on the couch and wait for the ice cream festival tonight.
- 10 gallons of water is really heavy. Definitely takes 2 people to move it around, or you end up pouring 170 deg water and wort on your chest. Both hurt.
- Putting a T in the line out from your kettle, even if the two seperate lines going to 2 carboys are of equal length, does not insure you'll end up with the same amount of wort in your 2 fermenters.
- The groundwater temp around here SUCKS in the summer. After 50 minutes my immersion chiller had things down to a whopping 82 deg - I should have bought some ice and use my water recirc pump.
- continuously adding .3 oz of hops every 2 minutes from 15 minutes to 1 minutes is a physical impossibility when you calculate the total hops to be 1.5oz. Should have been every 3 minutes...
At any rate, the yeast is pitched and I've got them sitting on my concrete basement floor to act like a heat sink... I hope. At last count the temperature was down to 77 in the fermenters, so it is working... I just hope it continues to before the fermentation heat kicks in and knocks it back up.
I'm pooped. Time to go sit on the couch and wait for the ice cream festival tonight.
Comments:
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Garrett,
How about this: get a cheap trash can, put your carboy inside of it and add just enough water so it doesn't float. As you sypon out your 82deg wort into the carboy, keep adding water to the trashcan. This will bring your wort temp down faster and give you a better thermally insulated fermentation temp. Obviously, you want to do this where you won't have to move the whole thing until your ready to pull the carboy out.
Dealing with ice sucks. Alternatively, you could buy/build a CF chiller and brew like a real man.
How about this: get a cheap trash can, put your carboy inside of it and add just enough water so it doesn't float. As you sypon out your 82deg wort into the carboy, keep adding water to the trashcan. This will bring your wort temp down faster and give you a better thermally insulated fermentation temp. Obviously, you want to do this where you won't have to move the whole thing until your ready to pull the carboy out.
Dealing with ice sucks. Alternatively, you could buy/build a CF chiller and brew like a real man.
# posted by 
: 8:41 AM
: 8:41 AM
Yeah, I know that CFCs are out there... but honestly I prefer my immersion for several reasons:
* You can see everything and clean it if necessary
* It is boiled for 20 minutes as part of your brewing regemine so it is totally sanitized
* You have the potential to whirlpool the break out of your wort transferred to the fermenter, thus increasing the repitchability of the yeast cake
* Finally you can achieve similar results to a CFC with a pump by using it to recirculate ice cold water.
All these things taken together and I prefer my immersion chillers to a CFC.
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* You can see everything and clean it if necessary
* It is boiled for 20 minutes as part of your brewing regemine so it is totally sanitized
* You have the potential to whirlpool the break out of your wort transferred to the fermenter, thus increasing the repitchability of the yeast cake
* Finally you can achieve similar results to a CFC with a pump by using it to recirculate ice cold water.
All these things taken together and I prefer my immersion chillers to a CFC.
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