First Brew Day Story

I don’t think I could have ever estimated how disoriented I was going to feel on brew day.  I was so excited to get started and take the plunge that I didn’t take the time I should to get everything set out and make sure I had a plan.  However, I am getting ahead of myself.

First, things that worked how I thought they would.  The keggle and burner were excellent.  I had plenty of room to spare in the keg even with the hop filter and dip tube.  The burner handled itself really well.  It had no problem heating up the 5 gallons of water and keeping at a nice rolling boil.  It also was the perfect size for the keg.  Because it has a nice flat, square cook top, the keggle can rest securely so there was never a worry about it being knocked over.

The counterflow chiller worked fine.  The only problem I had with it was my fault.  I set up to use gravity to move my liquid throughout the system.  I had a really hard time getting a good flow through the chiller into my fermentation bucket.  I can see now why a lot of people recommend using a pump with these, would have make things go a lot quicker.

The biggest pain in the butt by far was the glass hydrometer.  After accidentally knocking one off my kitchen table and having it shatter into a million pieces in the plastic tube thank goodness, right before I was going to take my Original Gravity reading, I dropped my second one.  So now I have no idea what the OG is which is very disappointing.  I ordered a refractometer today so I can at least take readings to see when fermentation is done.

I feel like I did a good job sanitizing and cleaning everything so hopefully when all is said and done and I pop the first bottle open, it will taste good.  I still have reservations about it.  

I know for sure that my next batch will not be kit based.  The only reason I used a kit this time is because it was part of a package and it didn’t make sense to let it go to waste.  I had thought about doing a Cream Ale but because we are getting into the fall months soon, I was thinking I would go for something more seasonal.  I will have to see what my options are.