DIY Wort Chiller, Belgian Tripel & Brew Day Beer

Rachel and I went out to Martin Hardware yesterday to pick up everything to create a DIY immersion wort chiller. The gentleman that helped us find everything said I should bring him a beer when I finish it... and I definitely plan to. Nice guy. Though I swear, that place is a mixed bag. Their customer service varies by day and employee, and their stock is completely hit or miss. However, yesterday I found everything I needed for the project and had good service... probably my best experience there. The other hardware stores around town aren't that great either. Meadowbrook has even worse Saturday hours and Lowe's is nowhere near bike-able.

I definitely had some frustration getting the wort chiller together last night. I think I was too tired to do it right. I decided to put it down and give it a another go this morning instead. Of course it went together much easier, and tested 100%. It work VERY nicely. It cooled wort from ~200F to ~70F in under 20 minutes. Here is a quick video of it in action. Unfortunately the lighting is poor.



Parts ~ $50 / Assembly time ~ 1 hour
-Copper tubing, intended for refrigerator ice makers ~$35
-Adapter coupling for kitchen faucet from 15/16"-27 to 3/4 hose (your faucet may have different threading, check first!)
-Garden hose tip that narrows almost to a point
-3/8" tubing, 5 ft
-3 small pipe clamps

And now I have a rad homebrewed wort chiller - thanks Rachel! We christened it on a Brewer's Best Belgian Tripel that we picked up from Charlottesville's Fifth Season yesterday. Now there's a place with consistently great service. They also give me free stickers and coozies.

The Belgian Tripel is my third and most-easily-brewed beer to date. Only one small mistake, due to equipment failure. I'll be keeping my eye out for a good thermometer. Regardless, I've gotten to the point where I'm fairly confident in the extract brewing process. My next goal is to find a good extract recipe and see if I can successfully gather and brew all the ingredients, then I'll begin concocting my own recipes.

I rather like my outdoor brewing setup:



And now I have two beers fermenting. I was beginning to think my bottle saving was in vain, but now I'm glad I started early. I'll transfer the Tripel to secondary next weekend, immediately after I bottle the Dortmunder.

Brew Day Beer:
It's Highland Brewing Company's Oatmeal Porter. A very fine beer from Asheville, NC. Found in a 6 pack at Kroger for $9. I've enjoyed three of these babies today! This time, I had appropriate glassware. Doesn't this photo make you thirsty?

Beer #1 = Almost Done & Extract Kit #2 = Frustrating

 Recap on beer #1, Brewer's Best European Bock.

1 liter Hacke-Pschorr mug and a gusher on the right.

Nate drinking a birthday gift.

Working on my part.

Filled these mugs from a 2-liter Blue & Gray growler.

Had nothing important to do yesterday, so it turned into a brew day with Brewer's Best Dortmunder extract kit.

Paperweight.

Steeping grains.

It was really cold outside.

This time the brewing was frustrating. Everything that I should have learned from the 1st batch, well, I didn't. I boiled with the lid on most of the time, which you're not supposed to do to prevent DMS (dimethyl sulfide) buildup. It also took forever to cool the wort in the ice bath (or maybe my thermometer is busted). Oh, and I added too much water to the wort so it falls outside of the original gravity range. It's at 1.04 instead of the 1.05-1.054 range in which it should lie. I think all of this stems from weak preparation and impatience. Also, I don't think it helps that I have to run through every room of the apartment to brew either. I store my equipment in the utility room, sanitize it in the bathroom, boil the wort on the patio, chill it in the kitchen sink, pitch yeast in the kitchen, move to lager fridge in the utility room. I swear I can see an LME (liquid malt extract) trail on the carpet.

RDWHAHB
relax,
don't
worry
have
a
home
brew!

The chickens go BOCK

I'm currently brewing my very first beer, a European Bock, using a Brewer's Best extract kit. I'm 4 weeks into the fermentation process as of today:


That's the inside of a mini-fridge that I've converted into a temperature-controlled fermenting chamber. What you can see is my 7 gallon glass carboy, a bung on the top, a piece of blow-off tubing emerging from the bung, and a small bottle of clean water tucked into the back right. The blowoff tubing allows gaseous byproducts of fermentation to escape the carboy and carries it to the water bottle. The water allows the gas to bubble out and prevents anything from traveling back up the tube into the beer.

The beer is currently in the secondary fermentation process, meaning I've already transferred the beer from a primary fermenting bucket in order to remove off-flavor-creating trub and to promote beer clarity. I've cold-crashed it and now it's lagering at around 38F.

In order to accurately control the mini-fridge temperature I picked up a Johnson Electric temp controller from Northern Brewer. It's the blue box on top of my fridge:

The temperature controller is great because it controls the on & off cycle of the fridge to maintain a specified temperature range. It has its own thermometer probe to slide into the fridge for an accurate temp reading. It has a small simple display, but is invaluable for being able to control lagering temperatures.

Also, big props to Northern Brewer. $8 for shipping really isn't bad for 3 large boxes by FedEx Ground arriving on a Saturday within 3 days. Thanks!

I plan to bottle the beer Nov. 7. It should be carbonated enough by Thanksgiving.