Carboy

First brew night at the new house

Preparing a Belgian Dubbel

I'd been waiting for this for a long time.

The last time I brewed beer I was home on paternity leave more than a year ago. We moved to our new house in August, and I'd been hoping for a chance to brew ever since, but a million things got in the way. The other night, I finally had my chance.

I bought ingredients last summer to brew a Helles, but I never had a moment to even look at them, and after six months, I threw out the grains and the yeast. Then in November, I got supplies for a dubbel. I was determined not to waste money (and a good opportunity) again.

On Monday night, my grains were 3 months old. My yeast was 5 months old. I have never brewed in this new house in a new town in a new county, so I don't know how well the water will taste in my beer. I hadn't done a mashout or a sparge in almost 13 months. And my yeast likes warm weather and would prefer it to be 68-78 degrees, in a house that currently won't get above 66. If only I had a lager yeast lying around, I'd have plenty of spots to ferment, but that's another discussion for another day.

Despite the less than optimal conditions, it was just really glad to get back to brewing. And after 3 years of making tiny batches in the galley kitchen of a Jersey City apartment, it was nice to have a little more room to work.

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In the middle of my mash, I looked at my wort chiller to see how I'd connect it to this new-fangled sink. And then I realized it won't fit. My connector was too big for the hose. I couldn't run out at 10 p.m. at night for ice with two sleeping children upstairs. I'd have to figure something out.

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Sparging with the strainer. This technique kind of works for small batches, but I want to scale up my operation, and I think I've reached the limits and will need to find a better way.

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At the start of the boil, just after dropping in 6/10's of an ounce of Tradition hops.

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Weighing out the Belgian dark candi and the Hersbrucker hops

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My solution for the bad sink connection? I carried my boil kettle down to the basement, where I hooked up the wort chiller to the utility sink next to the washing machine. It was a little treacherous on the rickety stairs, and not ideal by any means, but it worked, and it very quickly got the wort down to pitching temperature.

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Straining the wort into the carboy for primary fermentation.

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By Tom on 02/11/2013

Stage: Brewing