Mon Jan 19, 2009 5:35 am
So yesterday was the day. The big day. It would be a god damn epic day in the short history of Nickel City Brewing. We would be saying "good bye and fuck you!" to extracts, and entering the realm of the all grain brewer.
We had done our homework. This would be a breeze.
The first step was getting rid of old buisness. We had to bottle a Belguim Blonde, an oatmeal stout, and then rack over our IPA and our Lager. May I just say that the auto-siphon is the greatest invention in the history of brewing, and I now resent my local homebrew shop for letting me walk out the door without buying one when I started out. They should have hired a man armed with a whip to force new brewers to get one.
Our hopes of starting the mash in at 3? Yeah....a little optimistic.
Here are a few things I learned.
Holy Fuck! Grinding 12 pounds of grain is a bitch! I love the grain mill to death, but the fun factor wears a little thin after the first 5 pounds. On the other hand, my right arm is used mostly for masturbation, so bulking it up with the grain mill can only help my self-love life. Next weekend I'm having my 8 year old son do the grinding.
What do you mean test your equipment? It was nearly a disaster. Turns out the coleman cooler we converted to a mash tun has a leak. If not for the fact that it had to be cleaned before we used it, we never would have noticed the leak and everything would have gone to hell. Instead we fixed it with crazy glue and a hairdryer. Did we breathe in toxic fumes that might kill us? No doubt, but we really couldn't wait the time to let it dry on it's own.
you know, there's a reason why you plan shit out So we have 2 kettles. One was going to be for mash water, the other for sparging. We planned on using the water in the boil kettle for the mash, but changed the plan since the smaller kettle is lighter to lift. This left us, after mashing in, with the problem "so....what are we going to be pouring the wort into, again?"
All grain kicks ass! You know, in a few months my douche of a partner and myself will have figured out all the little trip wires and we'll wonder why ever bothered with extracts. It was fun, and less trouble than I thought. We still have issues with temp control, and planning out procedures but so far it's all good. The only problem is that we can't make as much beer as we did with extract. 5 gallons a week is waaaayyyy too little beer, it's going to be another month before we can get the equipment to double that rate. That leaves us with the real possibility of sobriety during the month of February. Won't someone please think of the children?
Thanks for the advice folks. The BN Army came through. Now the long wait to see how this batch turned out.
Bob "G. Bob" Roland
Nickel City Brewing
