Day in the Life of a Brewer Day 3- BREW DAY!

The time has come.  Spent the night in Iowa City after taking Isabelle and her cousins home.  Went to Big Grove Brewery in Solon, IA.  Had their Boomtown, a cream ale and another one of their ales.  Both very good.  To top it off, I had an amazing prime rib french dip sandwich that was one of the best sandwiches I've ever had.  The conversation, laughs, Old Fashioned, and Tenacious D made for a great night.

But I kept thinking about the brew.  Rushed home early to get some groceries for St Pats and get the brew going.  Finally got it going around 10 am.  Was done around 1 pm.

9:45- took some time to get the propane hooked up to the burner.  Turn LEFT instead of right.  Stupid gas fittings.

10am- measured 2.5 gallons TAP water from kitchen sink.  Poured into a nice tall turkey frying pot.  No risk of boil over in my opinion in this thing.  Got the burner lit and water heating.
Opened my specialty grains and got the mesh bag around it.  Missed a corner apparently because a bunch poured out onto the garage floor.  Opps!  Got that tied off and into the water for steeping.  Probably steeped 10 minutes before it got to 170 degrees.

Reached 170 and got the grains out.  Got the temp up higher and added dried malt per directions.
Stirred light crazy as I brought it to a boil.
Boiling.  Time for hops.  Added first round of hops.  Nice soft boil and lots of stirring.  No boiling over! Yay!  The aroma was so nice.

45 minutes into the boil and added my second hops and 6 lbs malt syrup.  Returned to a boil and finished off the hour long boil-fest.

Cut the heat.  Put the lid on and got the pot into a big pile of snow.  Added a sanitized thermometer to monitor temp.  Stayed in snow about 45 minutes to get down to 100 degrees or so.

Followed instructions and added 2 gallons cold water to fermenter bucket (already sanitized with Star San, lid too).  Poured in wort through funnel topped with a metal strainer.  All sanitized with Star San solution.  Topped off with more cold water from tap to make 5 gallons.  Sealed it and rocked back and forth to aerate.

Felt side of bucket and no warmth at all.  Pitched the yeast.  Sealed with the lid.  Put air lock in the top.  Carried fermenter to the basement to sit for 2-4 weeks before bottling.  Steven says the secondary fermentation isn't necessary.  Need to look into it.

Photos:

Now... we wait.


Notes:
- Used tap water
- Mesh bag will fall off specialty grain bag. Be careful with this next time.
- Is my digital thermometer low-temp?  Need to get a newer higher temp one for next time.  Also dropped Terry's thermometer on the garage floor.  Need to get him a new one.