Nice Rack!

So, last night we racked the first batch of beer. A few observations and things to remember for next time:

First, microwaving vinyl tubing to sterilize it is a great idea. Leaving it in the microwave unattended while you do something else is a horrible idea. It was a smoking, charred puddle of ooze in the microwave. The vapor given off was so horrible it stung my eyes, irritated my throat, and make me cough instantly. JP, M & J had to vacate Headquarters. So, don't do that again.

After JP and M got back from the store for more tubing, we did the transfer to the glass carboy. It went well. First, the sample we took for specific gravity came out at 1.014. With the initial at 1.060, that gives % Alcohol = (1.060-1.014)/1.060 = 4.3%. Not bad for the first week of fermenting. I expect the specific gravity will continue dropping a bit over the next two weeks, so we'll probably end up at around 5% alcohol.

We were really worried, as the bubbler hadn't moved in the whole week. I looked in about day 3, and it was tan frothy stuff that smelled like beer, not festering goo, so I figured it must be OK. When we finally took the top off the bucket I could see what had happened. The original bucket lid we had was broken. We were really lucky and J & R had brought another with them. It was a really nice one, with an o-ring seal and everything. It appeared to fit really well. The problem is appearances can be deceiving. It was a touch too small, so it looked great, snapped on fine, but in four spots around the lid away from the tabs it clearly did not seal. Luckily it looks like it was tight enough to keep stuff out, but confused us all week with the non-functioning bubbler.

The auto-siphon worked fine, but the 8 feet of replacement tubing JP got, cut in half, really was not enough. Next time we go 6 feet for the transfer. It worked pretty well at not transferring muck, as it sits up above the bottom by 3/8" or so. There was definitely some, but if I lifted it a bit, or kept it in one place, it didn't do so bad. We closed off the carboy with a stopper and the same bubbler (wiped with alcohol on the outside stem) and put it on the shelf. Clean-up of the bucket was easy, just natural soap and water.

This morning we visited, and the sediment we transferred had settled out nicely, and the bubbler had lots of pressure behind it, so it looks like everything is ok. In a couple weeks we'll bottle it and should have our first beer.

Beer Batch #1

Well, last night JP, J & R and I brewed our first batch of beer. It went well, I thought, but certainly some things to keep in mind for next time. We followed the directions from Beercraft, with a couple changes that J & R suggested.

First, the water from the hose down at Headquarters definitely had some particulates in it, and maybe was a little off in color. We got water from the tap instead, but that was a pain because it was a long walk, and the sink doesn't allow you to fill the gallon pitcher. So, we did it by quart, filling the gallon, then walked the gallon to the kettle. Tedious. So, for next time I think making an attachment for the hose that allows a 0.2 micron filter would be great. This would assure particulate and micro-free water. This would also solve the second problem, which was we did not have a way to create sterile water to add to the fermenter to bring it up to 5 gallons.

Second, the directions were not clear, but J & R helped with the temperatures and whatnot. Basically add the grain bag at room temperature, bring it up to the specified temperature (154F in this case) then turn off the burner and let it cool over the time listed.

Speaking of the grain bag, next time we either need to move it a bit, or we have to have a way to keep it off the bottom of the kettle. It burned through, made a hole, and some grain leaked out. We scooped it out with a big scooping spoon that J & R provided, so I don't think it will completely screw up the batch, but it would be nice to not have that happen again.

Next time a spatula or something to get all of the malt extract out of the bucket would be nice too.

Cooling the kettle after we were done with the 60 minutes of boiling was a challenge. The large kettle did not fit down into the keg bucket we had filled with ice. Putting it into the 5 gallon plastic primary fermenter bucket didn't help either. The plastic was a great insulator. We finally gave up since it was 1 in the morning. The solution was to put plastic wrap over the stopper to completely seal it, and we added the yeast in the morning after it had cooled down to room temperature.

So, the 5 gallon fermenter is on the shelf down at Headquarters. In 6 days we'll move it to a 5 gallon glass carboy as the second fermenter. I think the seond batch we'll do the Kolsch to see if we can address some of the issues we had. If that works, the later batches will be 10 gallons. The kettle can handle it, other than plastic buckets, we have all the equipment, and it really is not twice the work to get twice the beer.

Beer Brewing: Inventory of Equipment and Ingredients

JP decided a while back she wanted to brew some beer. She'd acquired most of the equipment over the past months, and for her birthday I got her all of the ingredients from Brewcraft to make two 5-gallon batches of beer. Since we don't know what we're doing, we're going to try to follow Brewcraft's instructions as closely as possible, and have our friends J & R come over and give us a hand. The equipment we have on hand down at Headquarters:

A 50L Stainless steel container, with a spherical bottom. No spigot, but other than that, I think this will work for the boil. The price was right.

Two five gallon glass carboys, with stoppers. We'll use only one per batch, so some day when we have two batches going at once we'll be set.
An auto-siphon. Not absolutely required, but after siphoning gas enough times and getting a mouthful of unleaded, I think this might be a better idea.A bubbler, a stopper with a hole to fit the bubbler, a floating thermometer, a hygrometer, and a clip-on thermometer.
We're going to have to clean all of this stuff, and this no-rinse sanitizer seemed like a good bet. We'll clean everything with water first at home, then do this as the final step down at Headquarters.
So, following the Brewcraft recipe and instructions, next we have the cheesecloth bags and the grains.
Two 6# tubs of malt extract.

Yeast for "Lawnmower" on the left, Kolsch on the right.
Hops, again for "Lawnmower" on the left, Kolsch on the right.
Dextrose for bottling
We found some 34oz bottles with Grolsch-style caps at IKEA for about $2 a piece. We'll try some of those, plus some recycled 1-gallon and half-gallon glass juice jugs.