I brewed the ever popular Caribou Slobber kit yesterday, and I video’d each step along the way. If you’re so inclined, please take a look at my video and offer any helpful feedback so I can improve where needed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lobge29LXE
the hop packages look different. When did they start coming like that?
Well-made video. Comments:
Don’t steep your grains at 170F. You shouldn’t go that high, in fact, 170F is the upper limit. I used to start steeping as the water heated, which took 20 min or so and then removed the grains at 168F. You can also “tea-bag” them from time to time during the steeping process. Nice job not squeezing the grain bag.
You can warm your extract in the sink with hot water during the steep if you are concerned you’ll explode it in the microwave. Good tip on the rinsing of the jug.
You didn’t show oxygenation of your wort (except what little happened during transfer to the fermenter). Did you do that?
Overall, a good, well-made video.
Thanks. Yes, I did oxygenate. Gave it a good tumble back and forth for about 5 minutes. I should have shown that.
Regarding 170, yeah, the fact is, I had a hard time keeping it at 170 even. It was a few degrees higher. I dropped in some ice to try and bring it down. I hope I didn’t skunk it up.
They are sending out Hop Union Hops now. Don’t know when it started, but my recent purchase of 2 lbs was all Hop Union.
And with regards to squeezing the specialty grains, can you pour water over them instead to get more of the flavor out?
Nice Vid Kenny. It is nice seeing the process of fellow extract brewers!
I was only getting audio on the left channel. Not a big deal for an instructional video but just thought I’d mention it…
Thanks, colombo117.
Takehiko - Only the left channel. Strange. I’ll have to look into that. Thanks.
I have not done an extract in years, but I remember crushing my grains for All Extract and for Partial Mash. Has the methodology changed? I have friends that are starting out and I don’t want to give them any bad advice.
I was going to ask the same thing…did you crush the grains? They look unmilled.
They crushed them for me at the Northern Brewer store.
In the video the grains look uncrushed, are you sure they were crushed? the bag looked pretty clear.
I think so. The guy at Northern Brewer built the kit while I waited. He asked, “Do you want the grains crushed?” I said, “Yes,” and he returned momentarily with a bag of crushed grains.
I bought a mill because I didn’t like the way NB crushed.
How can I know if it’s crushed properly?
[quote=“Kennybellew”]How can I know if it’s crushed properly?[/quote]You should not see any whole grains. Just husks and the insides. Nice work on the video editing and narration.
Thanks, yeah, I’m not sure mine was crushed that well. I’ll keep an eye on it.
The guy might have forgotten to crush the grain, if so your next batch of slobber brown beer will change in color and flavour. Did you grains look like the pic that was posted?
Kinda makes me want to brew that beer again…well made video. Thanks
Thanks, Shredd.
Martin, the grains were definitely ground, but, perhaps, not as much as in that photo. There must be different settings for tuning a grinder for the amount of crushing. I’ll have to look into that.
I think putting your LME container in a hot water bath for a while would be a better idea than using the microwave. Microwaves tend to destroy food nutrients and could possibly effect the extract. Probably not a big deal, but hey, why not eliminate any possibilities of off flavors.
