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- #41
Last night I got my kettle and three more kits in! I also took 50' of 3/8" OD copper and made a rib cage wort chiller. Now I just need to put fittings on it and wire the ribs together for strength.
On my way down the home brewing rabbit hole
- Thread starter soccerguy83
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- #42
Yesterday I finished up the fermentation chamber and will be testing it this week! Then if all goes well I will be brewing this Saturday!
Wow man just found your thread tonight. I can see why you aren't brewing till Saturday that's some hard core brewing equipment your building, pretty awesome though.
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- #44
Tested the fermentation chamber last night and she held temp perfectly! I'm starting to get very excited about Saturday brew day! Picked up my 7gal of distilled water last night and will be picking up my yeast starter tonight from the LHBS. I'm planning on using a vial of RVA Yestlabs, haven't decided on what strain though. Anyone have any thoughts? I'm doing the Caribou Slobber from NB and here is the link to the yeast: http://www.rvayeastlabs.com/ale-strains.html. Tonight I will also be installing the GFCI outlet in the wall to keep the chamber on GFCI. Tomorrow evening I will be cleaning the kettle, carboy, and misc items.
I was under the impression that distilled water wasn't suited well for brewing due to it's lack of minerals.
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- #46
Everything I have read is that if you are using extract, either LME or DME, that the extracts have the necessary minerals added to them and if using either spring or tap water, you could be adding more minerals than needed causing off flavors.
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- #47
I was just about to suggest homebrewtalk.com
It is a great source of info with great people. It kind of reminds me of the brewing version of this site.
I have a strong 80/- Scottish ale that I just bottled Sunday. Next up is an English bitter. I would also suggest going to all grain. It is really not that hard and homebrewtalk has a ton of threads of different ways to go about it. Also, they have a huge recipe database so you don't have to purchase those expensive, half stale kits.
It is a great source of info with great people. It kind of reminds me of the brewing version of this site.
I have a strong 80/- Scottish ale that I just bottled Sunday. Next up is an English bitter. I would also suggest going to all grain. It is really not that hard and homebrewtalk has a ton of threads of different ways to go about it. Also, they have a huge recipe database so you don't have to purchase those expensive, half stale kits.
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- #49
Picked up my yeast!
That is pretty interesting I was unaware that the malt extracts had sufficient mineral in them.
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- #51
It's brewday!
Malt syrups have all the elements needed for a good fermentation, and distilled water is good for most beer styles.
PS - that Pacman yeast is pretty serious stuff for high alcohol brewing!
PS - that Pacman yeast is pretty serious stuff for high alcohol brewing!
So how did brew day go?
I've been home brewing for now on 10 years (yeah, before it was "cool" and the "in" thing to do), and have been using my well water without incident or off flavors, etc, the whole time. It all depends on what minerals and such are in your water. Have your water tested (as you should on well water), and if it's not high in iron, sulfur or lime, brew away. But please, PLEASE, don't use chlorinated city water. That crap will ruin a good batch of beer as bad as unclean brew equipment (a brewing sin), and that my friends, is the ultimate definition of alcohol abuse.
FWIW, I brew mostly IPA, with some imperials, doubles, and a few Irish ales thrown in, and nothing beats a good all grain batch with homegrown hops. If you grow your own hops and reuse yeast you get from your starter, you can do it inexpensively and much better than a stale, overpriced kit. Plus...you can dial it in to what you think is perfection. And beer done right is perfection.
just my $.02....
FWIW, I brew mostly IPA, with some imperials, doubles, and a few Irish ales thrown in, and nothing beats a good all grain batch with homegrown hops. If you grow your own hops and reuse yeast you get from your starter, you can do it inexpensively and much better than a stale, overpriced kit. Plus...you can dial it in to what you think is perfection. And beer done right is perfection.
just my $.02....
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- #55
Brewday went really well, I'll post more tomorrow. Had a tough time keeping temps up in the pot so had too keep a lid on it, so I didn't get the boil off that I was expecting so my OG was about 0.008 too low.
All in all had a great day, very tired now though haha.
All in all had a great day, very tired now though haha.
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- #56
The day started around 10 am with sanitizing my gear (hadcleaned it the night before) and getting everything set up and organized. Around 11:30 my buddy came over and westarted getting everything started around noon.
We put 6.5 gal of distilled water in the kettle and lit theburner. It took several tries to get itlit as it kept vapor locking for some odd reason. Once lit, we added the specialty grains tosteep for 20 mins. After the grains hadsteeped for 20 mins, they were removed and allowed to drip dry.
I took almost an hour and a half to get up to a boil. We ended up having to put a lid on it to getit to boil. As it was a little windy andonly about 41 degrees out yesterday it was putting the bayou burner to it’slimits.
Once boiling, my buddy kept me from adding the 60min hopsbefore the hot break, which was a good thing haha. Went through all the hop additions with noproblems. We did have to keep liftingthe lid every 45-60 sec to keep from having a boil over.
At five minutes left in the boil, I put in my 50’ 3/8”ODrib-cage chiller. At flameout I hookedup the chiller and started the timer. With 47F tap water and 41F air temp., the chiller was able to cool thewort from boiling to 69F in 13 mins. There was no stirring, just slight agitation by lifting the chiller upand down a couple times twice over the course of the chill.
Aeration was accomplished by using a drill with a paint stirrer. Ran it for about thirty seconds forward, thenabout 30 seconds backwards and there was a ton of foam!
The wort was then transferred to my 6 gal carboy and the RVAYeastlabs Pacman was pitched. The carboywas transferred to the fermentation chamber and blow-off tube wasattached. The fermentation chamber wasset for 18.5C which is just below the mid-point range for the yeast. The temp probe was attached to the side ofthe carboy and insulated with a couple inches of foam.
This morning I checked on it at 7:00am and we have activefermentation and I actually will need to change the bowl the blow-off tube isin! RVA Yeastlabs is almost likecheating haha!
We put 6.5 gal of distilled water in the kettle and lit theburner. It took several tries to get itlit as it kept vapor locking for some odd reason. Once lit, we added the specialty grains tosteep for 20 mins. After the grains hadsteeped for 20 mins, they were removed and allowed to drip dry.
I took almost an hour and a half to get up to a boil. We ended up having to put a lid on it to getit to boil. As it was a little windy andonly about 41 degrees out yesterday it was putting the bayou burner to it’slimits.
Once boiling, my buddy kept me from adding the 60min hopsbefore the hot break, which was a good thing haha. Went through all the hop additions with noproblems. We did have to keep liftingthe lid every 45-60 sec to keep from having a boil over.
At five minutes left in the boil, I put in my 50’ 3/8”ODrib-cage chiller. At flameout I hookedup the chiller and started the timer. With 47F tap water and 41F air temp., the chiller was able to cool thewort from boiling to 69F in 13 mins. There was no stirring, just slight agitation by lifting the chiller upand down a couple times twice over the course of the chill.
Aeration was accomplished by using a drill with a paint stirrer. Ran it for about thirty seconds forward, thenabout 30 seconds backwards and there was a ton of foam!
The wort was then transferred to my 6 gal carboy and the RVAYeastlabs Pacman was pitched. The carboywas transferred to the fermentation chamber and blow-off tube wasattached. The fermentation chamber wasset for 18.5C which is just below the mid-point range for the yeast. The temp probe was attached to the side ofthe carboy and insulated with a couple inches of foam.
This morning I checked on it at 7:00am and we have activefermentation and I actually will need to change the bowl the blow-off tube isin! RVA Yeastlabs is almost likecheating haha!
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- #57
Whew!!! That's some serious initial fermentation. What was your OG? Did you make a starter from your Pacman or just pitch it?
I'd make sure I collected the yeast cake, wash it, and reuse it for future batches. That's a wicked yeast right there!
Good luck!
I'd make sure I collected the yeast cake, wash it, and reuse it for future batches. That's a wicked yeast right there!
Good luck!
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- #59
The OG was 1.043 and it should have been 1.052, so a bit low because of the increased volume post boil. With regard to the yeast, it was a liquid yeast from a local producer, just pitched it straight out of the bottle! Every batch I have seen using this yeastlab have looked like this, it's almost cheating!
Boy that stuff stuff really bubbled up. Looks good!
