Uggh, lots of things went wrong on Saturday.
First! A very stuck sparge. I've been having issues with my mash tun anyways, so I tried 200g of rice hulls and played around with the false bottom a bit. But yeah, nothing wanting to actually come out. Had to do a lot of jiggery-pokery to get some wort. Mashing and sparging took about 4 hours!!
Thanks to jiggery pokery, my wort was full of gunk. It settled right onto the element of my buffalo boiler. I didn't realise right away, because it kept cycling as it does, so I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the boil and it didn't. So after an hour of no boil, had to transfer everything to the stovetop. Took forever, but finally got it to boil. But stunk my house out! Luckily, no boil overs, but add 3 hours of boil time to my day!!
Then, finally start to chill - and it's taking ages too. Check after 50 minutes and its only dropped to 34úC...uggh... And guess what? Water was leaking everywhere from the chiller hose and I flooded my utility room. That turned my hubby really grumpy by this point, because I had been brewing all day.... and we had a big flood to clean up.
Transferred my wort to a bucket and threw it outside to cool down further. Went and drank beer and said 'screw this'. HAHAHA.
Finally, pitched the yeast about 11 hours after I started.
It was knackering.
I *almost* convinced hubby that I should get a Grainfather, to cut down these issues. He was almost there, until I told him the cost. I might have better luck convincing him of an Ace Microbrewery.
In the meanwhile, looks like I'm being moved into the freezing garage for brewing now, since if it floods out there, it won't ruin the floors.
I really need to get a grain mill and a new false bottom of some kind. Cleaned the boiler out with oxi cleaner and scrubbed the element, so hopefully that won't happen again. And need to replace the chiller hoses....
Joy joy!
Beer smelling lovely though (Rye IPA).
First! A very stuck sparge. I've been having issues with my mash tun anyways, so I tried 200g of rice hulls and played around with the false bottom a bit. But yeah, nothing wanting to actually come out. Had to do a lot of jiggery-pokery to get some wort. Mashing and sparging took about 4 hours!!
Thanks to jiggery pokery, my wort was full of gunk. It settled right onto the element of my buffalo boiler. I didn't realise right away, because it kept cycling as it does, so I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the boil and it didn't. So after an hour of no boil, had to transfer everything to the stovetop. Took forever, but finally got it to boil. But stunk my house out! Luckily, no boil overs, but add 3 hours of boil time to my day!!
Then, finally start to chill - and it's taking ages too. Check after 50 minutes and its only dropped to 34úC...uggh... And guess what? Water was leaking everywhere from the chiller hose and I flooded my utility room. That turned my hubby really grumpy by this point, because I had been brewing all day.... and we had a big flood to clean up.
Transferred my wort to a bucket and threw it outside to cool down further. Went and drank beer and said 'screw this'. HAHAHA.
Finally, pitched the yeast about 11 hours after I started.
It was knackering.
I *almost* convinced hubby that I should get a Grainfather, to cut down these issues. He was almost there, until I told him the cost. I might have better luck convincing him of an Ace Microbrewery.
In the meanwhile, looks like I'm being moved into the freezing garage for brewing now, since if it floods out there, it won't ruin the floors.
I really need to get a grain mill and a new false bottom of some kind. Cleaned the boiler out with oxi cleaner and scrubbed the element, so hopefully that won't happen again. And need to replace the chiller hoses....
Joy joy!
Beer smelling lovely though (Rye IPA).