Friday, December 31, 2010

recycling wort chiller water

A wort chiller allows for a quicker cool down time after the final boil, just prior to pitching the yeast and letting them do their magic. A water hose is connected to one end sending cool water through the copper coils submerged in the hot wort. The water comes out pretty hot after running through the coils but is perfectly fine other than that. Instead of letting this water waste away in the yard or down the driveway I've decided to recycle it in these rain barrels I scored on cragislist. They're recycled olive barrels from Spain and come plumbed with a water tap for only $45. I didn't have everything I needed to use them for my first batch but I'll post later on how they work out.


Thursday, December 30, 2010

Brew Day #1 - Racer 5 IPA

I'd call it a "mostly" successful first day. I completely forgot to add 1lb of corn sugar with the malt extract, per the recipe, (I blame the real Racer 5 consumed during brewing) so we added a little less water at the end in hopes of geting closer to the expected final gravity. Original gravity was 1.07 and the recipe says we should have hit 1.072. Total brewing time was 4 hrs.

Big thanks to tgrier for providing guidance on my first brew day.




Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Brewpot arrives early

15.5 gallon brewpot arrived a day early from amazon.com. I'm starting
off with 5 gallon mini mash recipes but this gives me plenty of room
for all grain down the road. A 30ft copper wort chiller is my only
other "upgrade" from what is typically considered a standard home brew
kit.

Hello World

Two things I hope to accomplish with this blog: a chronicle of my home
brewing efforts and blogging 100% from a mobile device.

Let the games begin. First brew for this blog starts tomorrow with a
mini mash Racer 5 IPA clone.