I just did my second batch ever and i did a partial mash kit from a local home brewer. It wasn’t too bad. Having to do the partial mash and rinse added about another 1hr. One thing that i learned was that mashing in a grain bag is a pain in the a$$. The bag makes it a pain to mix up the grains to avoid hot spots in the mash, which made it difficult to keep within the proper range. Next time i do one, I’m going to go bag-less but come up with a better solution for filtering it.
Other than this I feel like my second batch went much smoother than my first. My cool down took 8 mins with the ice bath to go from boiling to under 100 and i feel like the little things added up to make the second time much easier.
Well off to go find more cool empty beer bottles… seems like a never ending quest.
In your quest for good commercial bottles to reuse, I highly recommend avoiding Anchor bottles. I broke six of them while bottling my oatmeal stout a couple weeks ago using a Red Barron capper. Infuriating! Maybe they would be fine with a bench capper, but I personally wouldn’t risk it. Dumping out perfectly good beer sucks!
If you’ve got an old cooler with a drain valve you can convert it with a cheap SS toilet supply braid for a filter. The cooler holds the mash temp well during conversion. Check out Denny Conn’s site for instructions:
http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/
The only thing i have been hesitant about with the coolers, is the leaching of chemicals form the plastic.
The manufactures won’t say anything about heating their products. I think Denny is nearing 1000 batches on his original cooler.
Now, weather or not it has had an adverse effect on him… :shock:
