cooking up some holiday cheer

IMG_1474
Originally uploaded by rchanf.

with the holidays fast approaching buddi and i decided to get in gear and make some homebrew. it was a particularly exciting occasion because matt had made some significant equipment upgrades.

first his brew pot. the caldron consists of an open 16-gallon keg with internal thermometer and spigot for draining. the second and most important of the two is the wort chiller. for those who are not familiar this is a device that cools the boiling wort as (or before) it travels into the fermenter. this method has three notable advantages. since the wort is cooled instantly, one may pitch the yeast as soon as the wort is in the fermenter rather than waiting hours until the liquid is a suitable temperature for adding the yeast. also the cold break that results from the accelerated cooling will make filtering process more efficient. the second advantage of using a chiller is that the wort has a much smaller chance of coming in contact with anything that may contaminate the beer-to-be.

but alas! not all was well in the river city! our one fear was that the chiller would become clogged with a hop flower or some other solid ingredient. we of course paid the price for not acting upon our fears. a lone hop flower quickly made its way into the coils of the chiller and the brewing process came to an abrupt halt. this caused an instantaneous flurry of activity, as we were not prepared to transfer the wort into the fermenter by another method. fortunately there were a few onlookers whose services we enlisted as we rearranged our equipment and drained the wort from the brew pot. the beer itself will still be quite good (a brown spicy christmas ale) the disappointment is that all of our (mostly buddi's) efforts and intentions did not come to fruition.

one week later.

with a drainage screen inserted on the inside of the brew pot and one more batch worth of experience we set out to make a stout. the process worked as intended and we will now be able to enjoy two types of homebrew when the holidays arrive. so if you find yourself in the great metropolis of marietta during the holidays stop by and have a homebrew!