Equipment review

I just built my lautertun while I was mashing. My old primary fermenter is a 6 gallon bucket I got from a Brewers Best brewing kit. I put a few hundred holes in it with a 1/8" bit. I put that in my old bottling bucket (also six gallons, they nest nicely). The spigot is placed almost exactly as Papazian discusses in Joy of Homebrewing.

My wort cooler is fifteen feet of 3/8" copper tubing that I run through my sink filled with ice.

And, of course, my favorite latest purchase: my kegerator.

First All Grain: Suplamental

30th at 10pm: Its good that I'm not graded for spelling. I pitched the yeast at 4am this morning. Its now been over 12 hours, and there is absolutely no activity. I am concerned. If come Tuesday there is no activity still, I'll pitch another bag of yeast. I think the wort was hotter than I was guessing.

31st at 10pm: I've looked at the wort again, with big hopes that the yeast was just strangely dormant. My hopes have been fulfilled, and the yeast has started working.

1st at 10pm: The yeast was not very active during this run, coinciding with the low OG taken. Hopefully it still tastes good, even if it doesn't have a decent kick.

First All Grain

6 lbs WYM Caramunich III

1 lb 120L Crystal Malt

½ lb MTN Black

½ lb WYM Smoked

1 lb of potatoes

3 tbs Peet's Sumatra Coffee

2 oz Northern Brewer

1 oz US Fuggles

British Ale Yeast

I chopped up the potatoes and put them in the water as it warmed up to steeping temperatures. All the malts (and potatoes) soaked with 2.5 gal of water at 155F for ~1 hr. Dumped into Lautertun, sparged with 3 gallons of water. Could not bring it to rapid boil on burner. Started with Fuggles at beginning of 30 minute boil. At 20 minutes into boil I put in 1 oz of Northern Brewer. At 29 minutes into boil, I put in the other oz of Northern Brewer. I pulled it off after the thirty minute boil, and threw in three table spoons of Peet's Sumatra coffee grounds. I let that sit for about five minutes while I got the wart chiller set up. I poured the wort into my old bottling bucket through a strainer. I connected the spiget of the bottling bucket to the wort chiller. As the wort ran through the chiller, it heated up the sink pretty quickly. I emptied all of the cold items in the freezer to try to keep the temperature down. I had to empty the sink a few times, and stop flow a few times to keep the temperature down. I even put the carboy my large stock pot and poured cold water over it to try to help keep the temperature down. I don't know the final pitching temperature. But it felt cool to the touch (guessing ~70F). I pitched the yeast, and threw the carboy in the closet.

OG: 1.025

I am concerned with the above specific gravity. I have not brewed a beer with such a low specific gravity. I am hoping that something happened during the measurement that has caused the value to be wrong, but I can't really think of anything.

Welcome

This blog is to help spread information about home brewing, and specifically to follow me through my home brewing attempts. I've been home brewing for about 4 years, off and on. Up to this point I have used recipes entailing extracts only, and partial mashes, and I have always bottled. A few weeks ago I purchased a kegerator. I bought a cornelius keg off of the internet. I did not realize that the two would not instantly get along. The kegerator had a sanky connection (like a commercial brewery keg), and the cornelius had the regular Pepsi connections. I've ordered the Pepsi connections and hope to create a system that will allow me to return to the sanky connection when I feel like it.

With the new kegerator, I went to the brew store and bought a few things...