The lure of all grain brewing was just too great, and so, with only three batches under my belt, I am making the jump.  A while ago I acquired a 48 quart cooler that would serve as my mash/lauter tun.  It has sat, waiting, for its turn to transform into a beautiful butterfly.  I finally gathered all the parts I would need and started measuring.

I knew I wanted to use a four drain design because of the very compelling charts in John Palmer’s How to Brew.  I also wanted to use copper because I wanted more practice soldering.  I also like the look of copper for whatever reason.  I also agreed with Palmer’s observation that leaving the long drain tubes free from the end connectors would make it easier to clean out the entire system.  

I went with the trusted and exceptional Bargain Fittings for the bulkhead and valve.  I can’t say enough good things about this place: they have great prices, ship extremely quickly, and are absolutely excellent.  I most likely ordered the wrong nipple for my cooler.  I probably could have benefited from a slightly bigger nipple, but I can still get everything connected.  I also realized that the pipe to male NPT fitting was not going to work.  I would have no way to screw it on, so I went and got a brass 1/2” pipe to 1/2” compression fitting which should do the trick.

I got everything dry fitted and realized another problem with this design.  The whole drain assembly is sitting about a half an inch above the bottom of the vessel.  I am going to get a 45 degree copper fitting which should allow me to position the drain on the bottom of the cooler, otherwise I would have a lot of dead space.  I might have to shorten the drain pipes as well to accommodate the bend.

Now that everything has been dry fitted and I have made some necessary changes to the design, it is time to fire up the torch and start soldering these parts together.  Once that is done and the slots have been cut in the long drain pipes, I will run the cooler through some calibration steps for Beer Tools Pro so the software will be better able to calculate strike water temps and how hot the sparge water should be.

I racked the Vanilla Porter over to my five gallon Better Bottle last night.  First, I opened up two vanilla beans, scraped the seeds out, and put them in the secondary.  I made sure to sanitize the cutting board and knife just in case.  Then I racked the beer on top of the beans.

I had also wanted to collect the yeast I used for the porter.  The strain was White Labs WLP005, British Ale Yeast.  I didn’t do a very good job of planning ahead, so I boiled my mason jars and got them all sealed up and in the fridge and left the trub to sit over night with a little beer sitting on top.  Time will only tell if the yeast is still viable, but I have hope.

Through my endless perusing of various home brew related websites, I noticed that people occasionally get together and share in the joy of brewing.  This sounded like a fantastic idea and so, I invited my good friends Andrew and Jordan over during Labor Day weekend to brew up a nice Vanilla Porter.  We discussed the various options we could pursue as far as recipes were concerned and settled on a nice porter which gets an addition of vanilla beans in the secondary phase of fermentation.  With Autumn on it’s way, my tastes start drifting toward some of the richer, heavier beers like porters and stouts.  A porter seems to be a nice transition from drinking wheats and paler ales to the deep dark tones of a good stout.

We decided that we would spilt the ingredient costs and then split the end product.  We were going to stick with extract since that was all we could do and I offered to host the brew day.  I had just brewed a batch a few days ago (Thunderstruck link) so all of my gear was clean and ready to go.  One ingredient I paid special attention to was the vanilla bean.  Store bought vanilla tends to be lifeless and wouldn’t bring the flavor I was hoping for.  Never afraid to take to the internet, I stumbled upon Beanilla.  Specializing in various varieties of vanilla from different parts of the world, Beanilla seemed like an easy way to get a quality product that would enhance the beer.  I decided on a Bourbon Vanilla because of its traditional flavors which should bring a nice warmth to the beers flavor profile.

With all of ingredients secured, we set out.  The brew day went really well.  We were able to knock out steeping the grains and getting the pot into a full boil without any problems.  After making our three hop additions, enjoying some great beers, and calling the day a success, we put the fermentor in an ice bath to let it cool and headed out to one of the local craft breweries, Barley Island, to enjoy some more beer and food.  After paying the bill and getting some growlers filled, we called it a day and parted ways.  

I had a great time brewing with the guys and have high hopes for the beer we produced.  However, I confirmed a problem in my setup that I will need to deal with.  During my first brew, I was able to get my beer down to pitching temperature with a single pass through my counterflow chiller.  I was thrilled with the performance and hoped that it would continue.  So far it has not.  I was able to get the wort down into the mid 80s but had to put it in a bath to get it to cool the rest of the way.  This was the same case with my previous brew.  The easiest solution I can think of is to recirculate the wort through the chiller and back into the kettle until it comes down to pitch temps.  All this to say, the value of a pump, as part of the brewing process, is becoming more and more evident.  I also realize that I probably would have been better off building an immersion chiller at first but it is too late for that now.

I thoroughly enjoyed brewing with the guys and I think they enjoyed it as well.  I ended up taking on a teacher role, filling them in on my process and why I made certain choices that I did.  Andrew had one beer under his belt but it was years ago.  Jordan is getting ready to take the plunge but wants to hold off until he moves into his house, which is the same qualifier that I was faced with.  I think the experience got them both excited to get brewing and I hope they do, because I want to be able to trade some beer in the future.  It would be a shame if we didn’t do another collective beer, so hopefully that is in the cards down the road as well.