Brew day pics

Brew day!

My first try here, will be Caribou Slobber Brown Ale. An extract kit from Northern Brewer.

First step, set up the brew kettle.  I am using a propane burner as a heat source.  I only have an electric stove, and its not something I trust to keep 5-6 gallons of water boiling for an hour or so...

For this mix, I have a specialty grain mix.  Place them in the sack, and steep for 20-30 minutes while coming up to boil. But, take it out earlier if the water reaches 170 degrees F.

After steeping for a bit:  Don't worry, the little bits and pieces are from the grains.  Some little bits will escape the bag.  I shook it around a bit, before placing in the kettle, to get most of the loose stuff out.  It smells wonderful.

Boil proof plastic spoon:

Re-hydrate the yeast:  I pre-boiled some water earlier, and let it cool.  At about 100 degrees F, sprinkle the dry yeast into 1 cup water and cover with plastic wrap for 15 minutes.  Then gently stir, re cover, and leave until pitching time.

Ok, time to remove the grains:

Once up to the first boil, turn off the burner and add the liquid and dried malt extract (DME):  Be sure to stir well and completely dissolve the malt.  If not, it will burn on the bottom of the kettle.

Not time yet... but here's the three packs of hops:  Oh boy!  I absolutely love the smell of fresh hops.  It is intoxicating.

Enjoying a favorite brew... I love Dogfish Head brews.  :-)

Now we're in business!  We now have what's called wort.  Its boiling away here.

Oops... so, yes, lesson learned already:  Once up to boiling, I learned that I should turn down the heat a bit to JUST keep it boiling.  Next:  when adding hops... I was a little bit over-ambitious and dumped the whole bag at once!  BOIL-OVER time, oops!   Add the hops slowly and stir, stir, stir. 

We will have a total boil time of 60 minutes for the hops.

Second hop addition, 45 minutes to go with the boil...   And last (not shown) add the finishing hops with 15 minutes left in the boil.

Here is the stainless steel wort chiller.  Place in the boiling wort for the last 5 minutes to sterilize it.

Garden hoses attached to inlet and outlet.  Our goal is to chill the wort down to below 100 degrees F as QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.  This is to reduce chances of contamination.

Wort is below 100 degrees...  so, I transferred to the fermenter.  It needs to be below 80 degrees to 'pitch' the yeast. 

Second lesson:  Once in the fermenter, I had a hard time getting it below 80 degrees (per the instructions).  It was sitting at 90 degrees for a while :-(   So... I packed ice around it for a bit.  I think, next time, I will use the wort chiller and get the temp down lower first...

Yay!!!  Yeast has been pitched.  Stopper and airlock inserted.

Now we wait...   and wait .... and wait...

End of brew day.