Successful First Brew!!! Brew Porn and Food Porn! Large Pictures!!!

Well I just wrapped up my frist brewing day! It went almost perfectly! My buddy who was supposed to help me never showed up, I had a small boil-over (more on that later), and I had a little trouble reading my hydrometer. But other than that, things went perfectly!

Here is my morning:

• 6:00 Am wake up and take of household and fatherly duties- take out trash, change diapers, feed baby, etc, etc.
• 9:00 Am Start getting my game face on. Start getting everything ready to go.
• 9:55 Am Buddy calls to say he won't make it. We were supposed to start at 10:00 AM sharp.
• 10:10 Am Boil Water for sanitizer in the kitchen on the stove. Put sanitizer in primary fermenter. I use it as my sanitizer bucket for the whole boil. Then I transfer it to the botling bucket when it's time to put the wort in the primary. Also start to boil water for steeping grains.
• 10:25 Am Water temp reaches approx 165*. Steep grains for 15 minutes.
  
  

  
  
  
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• 10:40 Am Return water to boil and discard grain bag.
  
  

  
  
  
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• 10:52 Am Small boil-over. I have read countless times on this forum about boil overs. I literally ran into the house to grab a measuring cup. I come out right as the foam peaks over the rim of my kettle. So I was able to turn down the heat and control it right away. Minimal wort lost.
• 10:55 Am Remove wort from heat and add malt extract. Stirred until mixed. Returned to boil.
  
  

  
  
  
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• 11:05 Am Added 2oz Progress Hops. Set timer for 60 minutes.
• 11:15 Am RDWHAHB
  
  

  
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• 11:50 Am Added 1/2 Oz Fuggles Hops.
• 11:56 Am Added yeast fuel
• 12:02 Pm Added 1/2 Oz Fuggles Hops.
• 12:07 Pm Remove from heat. Directly into ice-bath. Don't worry: It's a brand new trash can only to be used for ice-baths! I have been making ice cubes all week twice a day! I had three Wal-Mart bags full! Plenty of Ice!
  
  

  
  
  
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• 12:35 Pm Temp at 70*. Took OG reading. I had a hard time reading the hydrometer. It was pretty much halfway between 1.100 and 1.000. That would put me right at 1.050. The instructions said at 60* it should be approx 1.053. So I was pretty close.
• 12:40 Pm Transferred to primary fermenter. Sloshed it around a bit to aerate it. Pitched liquid yeast. I used White Labs British Ale Yeast. Put on lid and popped in airlock. Now it's sitting on my kitchen shelf. I keep my thermostat at 70* 24/7, so I figure the ferment temp is just about perfect.
  
  

  
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And here is the food porn. I was also smoking two racks of Pork Spare Ribs and a whole chicken (drunk chicken-style) on my new smoker (ECB).
Both racks I dry rubbed. One I slathered with mustard, the other I left dry. The chicken I rubbed down with a basil butter I made, and put an orange half inside. Then I poured out a Coors Light can and filled it 2/3 with Squatters Polygamy Porter, added some seasonings, and put it up inside my chicken. I couldn't fit all of it on my smoker, so I ended up using my gas grill for the rest.

I had the ribs above the chicken so all of the fat dripped onto the chicken....YUM!








I'd say it has been a Good Day!




A question: I was going to let it sit in the primary for a week before I rack to secondary. I'm going to be gone the whole weekend next week. Can it wait until Monday? Is 8 days in primary too long? Will it start to get skunky? I ran it through a strainer as I poured it into the primary, So I got all the Hops sludge. Or should I do it Thursday night? Is 5 days too soon?


BTW I brewed a Nut Brown Ale from AHS.

8 days in the primary will be fine. Damn those ribs look good!!!

Awesome! I'm inspired to pull out my smoker for brewday tomorrow...

Awesome looking food! I have decided to make some ribs for the 4th...that pork and chicken looked too good.

Don't sweat leaving your beer in the primary for 8 days. I switched over to 3 weeks in the primary and 3 weeks in the bottle/keg a couple of brews ago and everything is fine.

Sounds like you had a lot of fun. I got the house to myself this afternoon so I decided to take advantage and brew. My wort is just about to break. Now you made me hungry.

Got to go..

Excellent job on the brewday!! I am also looking forward to smoking some ribs over the 4th!!

Nice looking brew and awesome looking food.

I've actually been listening to some the Jamil show on www.brewnetwork.com and he suggested just using primary fermentation and no secondary fermentation at all. His reasoning was that a lot of times even those that are careful gain a lot of oxidation from transfering to secondary. That couple with taking the wort from it's original cake can result in less flavor and an overall less pleasing product. I know the man has been brewing for a long time and is respected as quite the brew master so I plan to use my secondaries as primaries from now on and just brew more beer! In short, don't worry about the extra few days in primary, some people don't even use secondaries at all and get fine results!

Damn that looks good, the beer and food.. You're making me want to go and buy a smoker.

Nice thread dude...awesome brew day and equally awesome little cookout. You got me pumped for brewing and eating dinner tonight. Good job.

Good Food. Good Drink. Good Family/Friends.

That is what it's all about. Its just that simple!

Brew On!

BTW........Don't let your no-show "buddy" have a sip of this batch!

Sounds like a good day, got to love brew & BBQ!:rockin:

Haha that chicken had a coors light can up it's a$$!!!!

Cheers

If ever I make it to Las Vegas, I coming to your place for lunch !!

Very nice! l brew alone on purpose! Less sharing.

Thanks for inspiring us all on July 4th! I'm getting a strong urge to go buy the ribs for tomorrow. I've got a blonde pale ale on the primary. I think I'll put it in the secondary tomorrow, drink a IPA and cook some ribs. Thanks for the pics!!!

As a fellow lover of beer and food(specifically smoked food) I stumbled on this amazing site yesterday. I was thinking "I wish there was a site about spicy food and barbecue and hot peppers like hombrewtalk with a forum etc...."

I just about didn't believe my eyes when I found thehotpepper.com. It is by the same people who did this site. It has a food forum, recipes, hot peppers, even a forum just for chili(con carne). Thought you might appreciate it too.