Monday, January 24, 2011

Its always something

Yesterday, I brewed my recipe for El Do IPA.  As I was cleaining up, I hit my hydrometer with a hose and knocked it onto the concrete floor.  It broke.  That's nine buck to replace.  I also hate my wort chiller.  I really need to invest in a plate chiller.  Finally I need a hop blocker of some sort. 
The brew went well. The mash began about 140 then I brought it to 157 and it went down to about 151. I did more of a batch sparge rather then using a sparging wand.  I used a combinaion of early hop additions of Chinook and Columbus with late hop additions of Simcoe, Cascade, and Citra.  The grain bill ended up being 23 lbs. of American Two Row, Biscuit, Wheat, and Crystal 35 Malt.   I had an O.G. of 1.055.  Still my beer seemed murky due to no hop strainer.  She is fermenting in the garage as we speak.  I rode my bike to work today and it was freezing, so I am hoping that the yeast does not get too cold.  The best part was I ended up using a Littlest Pet Shop tiny bucket as part of my breather because I couldn't find the right part.

2 comments:

Pete and Jana Deeble said...

This post reminds me of the Steve Martin bit where he tells a joke specifically for plumbers because he heard there was a big plumbers' convention in town. He proceeds to use all of this really arcane plumbing language to tell this joke, and when no one laughs, he asks if the plumbers convention is next weekend.

Still, I hear what you're saying about needing all kinds of new, money-costing items to keep your brewing up and running. Every time I think I have all the tools I need I think of some new design idea that will require some tool I don't have.

I like the stream of consciousness style of this post by the way. There's a grammar problem or two but I would fix it, because it really adds to the feel of it.

Pete and Jana Deeble said...

I meant to say I wouldN'T fix it.