Nobody Listens

The day (actually night) had arrived.

I had read around on some postings that secondary fermenters should be glass, not plastic due to the headroom and the permeability of plastic. So I decided to use the 7.5 gallon bucket I got at HomeBrew USA for my primary. I’ll pick up a carboy later. Plus the old bucket was, well… old.

I put the old bucket to good use however. I cleaned it well and mixed up 5 gallons of Star San. Overkill, yes but it should keep for a long time.

Here’s the recipe I’m making. It is a Pale Ale that HomeBrew USA calls “Cape Henry Pale Ale”

Malt:

• 7lbs light malt extract

Specialty Grains:

• 1lb 40L Crystal Malt
• 1/2 lb 60L Crystal malt
• 1/4 CaraPilsMalt

Hops:

• 3/4 oz Chinook [:60]
• 1/2 oz Columbus [:30]
• 1 oz Cascade [:05]

Yeast:

• WLP005, British Ale Yeast

Original Gravity: 1.058

IBU’s: 54.8

Colo: 12.9 SRM

Alcohol: 6.02%

Boiled approximately 3 gallons of water the night before and put into 3 1-gallon zip locks. Will use this to chill the wort.
Brought approximately 2.5-3 gallons of water to 150 degrees. Dunked grains for 30 minutes at 150-160 degrees.

Removed the pot from the heat and added the 7 lbs of malt. I inadvertantly wasn’t stirring when I was addding it (I was busy taking pictures). I realized this quickly and grabbed the spoon and began to stir.

Boil finally started at 10:30pm. Added 3/4oz chinook hops. The house was already filled with grain and malty goodness. The addition of the hops was even better.

Is this pre-boil over or post boil over?

After adding the Chinook, I had a boilover (damn you Law and Order for distracting me). I expect this was my hot break. It was a pretty big mess. Hindsight being what it is, I should have attempted to move the pot and wipe it up. Instead I left it, cleaning it up after all was over scraping up the burnt wort.

The previous night, I boiled about 3 gallons of water which I put in zip lock bags to freeze. I cooled the wort by adding this ice. Brought the temp down to about 90 degrees. I thought that should be enough and the cold water would bring it down to around 75. I was wrong. I should have added more ice. It took quite a while to get it down to 75. I had to finally put it in an ice bath.

Once I got the temp down, I stirred the wort with my spoon vigourously to aerate the wort. I pitched the yeast and was good to go.

I took a hydrometer reading. The Original Gravity is 1.055 (read at 75 degrees, adjusted that’s 1.056).

Here’s Some things I learned:

• watch the pot. prepare for the hotbreak/boil over
• affix the airlock then add the liquid. Also, use star san as the liquid or vodka.

I finished everying up around 1:00 in the morning.

I saved my grain into 3 ziplock bags in 3cups each to make spent grain bread. Hopefully will make one soon and maybe another when the beer is ready to drink.

Now the hardest part… waiting.