Saturday, February 4, 2012

Brew Day Step by Step

Here are my notes "pre first brew day." These will help me remember all the steps and the order of execution. I do not want any mistakes.


  1. Add 5 gallons of water to the brew pot, add to the stove, and turn to high. Put on the lid.
  2. To a stockpot, add some water and warm over medium heat. This is what I will use for warming the LME and for sterilizing additional water I may need to bring my fermentation volume to exactly 5 gallons.
  3. Add specialty grains to the grain bag. Shake for smaller bits to fall out of the bag. Tie a knot in the top. Soak them in the brew kettle water bobbing it up and down to fully soak the grains. Tie the bag to the handle of the kettle. Keep the lid on. Start a timer and add thermometer. Grains come out at 20 min or 170 whichever comes first.
  4. Start sanitation. Fill a 5 gallon bucket with water and 1 oz of starsan. Add the beer thief pieces, funnel, yeast pack, auto siphon, siphon tubing, scissors, bung, blow off hose, thermometer, hydrometer container, and bucket lid.
  5. Pull out grains, let them drain a minute, don't squeeze the sack, and discard the grains. Put the lid back on and let it come to a boil.
  6. At boil, remove the pot from the stove and pour in the LME stirring constantly. Then pour in the DME all at once stirring constantly. When well disolved, return the pot to the stove and get it boiling again. WATCH AND STIR to prevent boilovers.
  7. When it returns to boil, and first hop edition and start a 60 minute timer. Watch for boilover. You may have to turn down the heat to MED because it will boil very fast and bubble and splash. Then bring the heat back up after it calms down to something less than high. 8 was working for me.
  8. I won't mention the additions of hops since the recipes are going to vary, but assume you are adding hops at the times indicated on your recipe for the rest of the boil.
  9. Turn up the heat on the stockpot to boil that water (sterilize it) and then remove it from the heat to let it cool down to room temp. Save this to add to the carboy to reach full 5 gallons for fermentation later.
  10. At 5 min, add wort chiller to sterilize it. Submerge it good.
  11. Attach the adaptor to the sink faucet.
  12. At 0, turn off the stove and move the pot to a cooler surface. Hook up the chiller to the faucet and turn on the cold water. You want this chilled to 65 degrees in less than 30 minutes if possible.
  13. During the cooling, sanitize the carboy by racking the sanitizer out of the bucket and into the carboy. Mark the carboy with electrical tape so that you know what 5 gallons is. Add enough additional water to bring the volume of water to the rim of the carboy.
  14. Keep all the other sanitized equipment in the bucket, put on the lid.
  15. Add water and some starsan to the blowoff container.
  16. When wort is chilled, dump sanitizer from carboy.
  17. Rack from kettle to carboy. Do not fear the foam. Aeration at this stage is okay. Add the remaining boiled and cooled water from the stockpot to the carboy to get the volume to 5 gallons.
  18. Add the bung and swish the contents for a few minutes to aerate. Remove bung, cut top of yeast packet with scissors, pour yeast into carboy. 
  19. Add blow off hose. Insert blow off hose end into blow off container full of water and sanitizer.
  20. Place carboy somewhere dark and cool. Check your recipe for the correct temperature. Ales are about 60-72. My closet is right at 72 unfortunately.
  21. Leave it here until primary fermentation is complete or leave it here for the primary and secondary.

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