Seahawks win and I've got my first brew

[brandonreinhart]

I can barely type with my fingers so cold. I just hauled in my first, finished brew. I live in Seattle and so was brewing while I listened to some of the superbowl on the radio. When they won, as I boiled, the city exploded in shouting and fireworks. All around tons of shouting. Pretty crazy.

Anyway, despite having problems with my mega-pot (I wanted to do a full boil) I think things went really well. I ended up using a 3 gallon pasta kettle. I also used the FREE darkstar burner I got from that recent promotion and it worked really damn well. Very happy with that.

Main notes for the future:

1. The liquid malt is very thick. I probably needed to heat it up a lot more or maybe give it a couple seconds in the microwave. It took a while to get it all out and into the kettle.

2. The wort chiller works great, but produces a lot of run-off water. I directed that into my neighbor’s yard (hehe). I need a better solution for dealing with that water, which I’d rather not just waste. (But it’s Seattle, you really don’t need to water your yard here except in mid-June).

3. My hands are so numb. Get gloves for any future winter brews.

1. My burner setup,

2. keeping things sanitary,

3. wort chilling,

4. wort ready for yeast,

5. merlot and brown ale, can you guess which is which?

:cheers:

The bung on the beer carboy is a bit wet and keeps pushing up.

Thanks Northern Brewer for getting me started on this awesome hobby!

[tiltrotor22]

I usually dry the inside lip of the carboy and the outside of the bung so it stops slipping out.
I use a crockpot to warm the malt. I fill it with the hottest water I can get from the tap and then turn the pot on high and let it warm the malt up, it pours fast. I then scoop some hot wort into the malt containers, close them and give them a shake and dump it in to make sure I get all of it.

As for wort chiller run off, well you will have to deal with it unless you had an electric pump and a tub full of water and ice you could pull from and let the runoff back into the tub to recirculate.

Even on the coldest days my hands dont get too cold as they are near the burner or steam from the wort, but I always have a pair near by just in case.

[hades]

Buy a cheap pump from the hardware store. This will end up saving you money in the long haul, using fresh water will kill your bill. I use a submersible pump in a 10 gallon cooler to chill my wort. Add fresh water and ice after temp drops to 120. Caution: dont use that carboy handle to lift your wort. Get a brew hauler harness. I have read about snapping carboy neck. Extrememly dangerous. And saran wrap that bung in place. :cheers:

[sonex]

I hope you had the door open in the garage while your propane cooker was fired up.

[brandonreinhart]

Yes, the door was open (you can see it open in nearly every photo above).

I had quite a bit of krausen on the wort this morning and it was getting close to the bung so I put the blow-off hose on and ran it into a pitcher of sanitary fluid. Since I have to work today I figured this would save me potentially creating a mess my wife might take issue with.

[sonex]

I can only see a sliver of every pic I can’t see a door. No biggie, congrats on first brew.

[fullhousebrew]

Congrats on the first brew and congrats on the win (ps, this is coming from a HUGE Broncos fan… ).

[anberlin06]

12th man! Congrats on the first brew.