Amber Again...

My very first attempt at making beer was an Amber Ale extract kit from Northern Brewer. As certain people can attest, this beer was not good. It was down right awful. Of the paltry 35 bottles of the stuff I made, I think I still have 25 left. I have a feeling they will sit there unloved until I finally get around to dumping them out and using the bottles.

I still like the idea of having a nice Amber ale around, so I decided to have another go at this one. I figured I'd made a good amount of progress in my brewing skills and can better control fermentation temps now. So I picked up another Amber Ale kit from Northern Brewer. This time I went for an all grain kit, rather than extract. That alone will guarantee that this tastes different from the first one.

I brewed this up on the 4th of July in the early morning. I started at 7 am to beat the heat, but it was still scorching hot by the time I finished up around noon.

I missed my OG by 3 points, was expecting 1.047 got 1.044. This was due to overshooting my water amount a bit. I ended up with almost 5 1/2 gallons of water in the carboy and left another 1/2 gallon of break material in the kettle.

5 days later and fermentation is starting to die down. Looking forward to seeing how this turned out. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Cooler Conversion

What do you get when you combine a 52-quart cooler, a toilet supply line, a ball valve and some miscellaneous brass connectors? A mash lauter tun!

I started with a Coleman Extreme 52-quart model that I picked up at Sears for $30.00.

I then made a trip to Home Depot to get a toilet supply line with a stainless steel braid, a 1/2" threaded connector, two 1/2" brass barbs and a ball valve.

I cut the ends off the supply line and removed the tubing from inside of it. To get the tubing out you really have to treat it like a chinese finger trap. Push in while you pull. It took a few minutes and I lost some blood in the process, but I got it out.

I then crimped one end of the stainless steel braid shut and attached the other end to one of the brass nipples with a hose clamp. I attached the hole thing to the threaded connector and shoved it through the hole that was left after removing the drain from the cooler.

I attached the ball valve and nipple to the other side, applied some silicone sealant to prevent leaks and I was done. Took maybe an hour of fiddling overall. Easy and cheap way to make a Mash Lauter Tun. This was my last obstacle for going all-grain. After I finish up my extract supplies, I'll be doing an all grain brew shortly after.