On Saturday morning, I started off a brew for a batch of porter with the following grist based on Jamil Zs brown porter:
3.9kg Pale malt
500g Munich malt
500g Brown malt
500g Crystal malt
280g Chocolate malt
Mashed it at 67C for a few hours and then sparged it all down. However, at this point, one of the elements in my boiler decided to stop working leaving me with one element to heat 30L of liquid. Eventually got a (not very vigorous) boil and chucked in 60g of some old Bramling Cross hops I had in the freezer. After 45 minutes, that element also pegged out.
Putting the boiler on the hob to try to get it going again, I chucked in the remaining 35g of hops and Irish moss, and I managed to get the brew back up to 95C for another 20 minutes or so, but no boil. Anyhow cooled it and landed up with loads of wort (27L or so…) at 1051.
Of course, to top it all off, I found my immersion heater was also smashed, and so I had to cover the hole in the lid of the fermenter with a saucer. Needless to say, the SO4 has now gone potty and is spewing foam all over the place in the fermenting fridge – it’ll be a minor miracle if this isn’t infected…
Sod.
Still, it smells amazing (think chocolate factory!), and new kettles (+ spares!) are on order with Tesco awaiting some butchering to allow me to replace the elements prior to my next brew, when I am aiming to do a Hefeweizen with some WLP300 that I need to grow up in a starter beforehand.
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you take the elements from Tesco kettles? lol!
Yup! It works well – one stainless steel stockpot (£40), + 2 kettles (£4.97 each) and a few plumbing connectors and you have yourself a boiler for homebrew. And a lot cheaper and sturdier than buying one from a homebrew shop.
Of course, the elements are obviously cheap Chinese imports and have only lasted me 22 brews, but it’s cheap to replace them. If they keep going (or we redo our kitchen!) then I may migrate over to a propane fired boiler…
ooh propane !!! How much does a “real” homebrew boiler cost then? Taking into account costs of replacements and number of brews?
And chocolate factory… mmmm one day I WILL go to Cadbury land.
“Real”? Well – it depends what you’re after – a pot on a stove will do the job if you’re happy to do it that way – so as much as a saucepan costs really. If you want a larger volume, then it gets a bit more “in depth”. You can buy a “ready made” 10 gallon brewery for less than £200 – and once you divide the cost of the brewery by all the beer you make, the cost soon effectively goes down. Anyhow, I think I’ve fixed it now – will have to have another go again
they wouldn’t let you into Cadbury Land – they’d take far too high a hit on profits if you start on the chocolate
A screwed up brew is about the only thing I can think of worse than a cloudy night… Good luck with the next one!
James
Cheers James – you know – I may even get back to doing some astronomy soon… !! I’m working my way round the garden – the patio is almost done, got a wall to finish and then I’m off into the bit of the garden where the observatory is supposed to go. Once I sink in the mount foundations and get the pier screwed down, it’ll make setting up per night a possible – as it is, lugging the tripod out, screwing it all down just takes too long.
Plans for the dome afoot – just need some time and money to get it all done now! Hopefully, it’ll come out of being mothballed soon… Must be star party time soon? Hope the weather holds out for you…!