Last brew day was July 30, so 6+ months of no brewing. Made Martin’s dry Irish stout discussed a couple of weeks ago and then on the home page yesterday. In the future, please remind not to brew at night, outside in February, when it’s 25-30 degrees out, with a new kettle on a recipe I haven’t made before. Yes, I should have known that already. Damn cold made for a long night: long time to heat strike water, not so bad for sparge, and then I must have bumped my regulator getting kettle up to a boil. Got same temp reading twice about 20 minutes apart, so that made it take almost an hour to get to a boil. With the extreme cold, I missed final volume by almost a gallon and OG by 7 points. But at least I got a brew day in!
Sounds like a challenging brew day, Frank. It’ll be good !
Nice!
Night + Cold = Boo
Night + Cold + Brewing = Yay!
Any active fermentation is a good thing… everything else is pride right?
Exactly. Just been itching to get back at it saw an open 5 hours after work. In the end, I was on it from just before 6 till almost 1am.
Way to go, man! I just ended a 6 month hiatus myself. Feels good, huh?
It sure does. Wife was laughing at my visible excitement as I got everything together: salts, scales, tools, yeast. Up and down the steps. Damn it was cold though. Recently had the oldest kid move back in and all his stuff is filling the basement garage where I have done most of my cold weather brewing the last 4 years. Check on the kettle, go inside for what seemed like hours on end. Still a blast though and hope to knock out a couple more batches by the first weekend of March
I’m there with you. 1st brew in ages ago was two weeks ago. I messed up so many things.
Hoping to brew this weekend, but Saturday is booked. Sunday is booked. Monday is a day off, but we’ll see.
I just got my water heated enough to begin the mash. 50 F with windchill and I’m in a long-sleeve shirt and warm enough. Making wort for a brown ale.
Cheers and brew on.
I was supposed to brew today…but ended up busy with other things yesterday and never got started.
kudos to anyone who’s beaten this sort of funk, even if things didn’t go according to plan…
60 degrees out today. Or more.
10 gallons fermenting. Stogie. Fire pit.
Sounds like a day well-spent!