my first brew day

[beer]

hello all thought id share my very first brew day its a barley bottom chocolate coffee stout every thing all ready weighed out so no chance of messing that bit up here's the goodies
day started at 12.15 at 13.50 grains in cool box mash tun bit of a panic over temp as it seamed to drop a lot going in ended up reading 60c http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/431 ... f262_m.jpg
wraped it up well in blankets ect and at 16.25opened it up temp at 61c so not sure what happened there more practice needed.
running off took it nice and slow with no problems.
next fired up the home made plastic boiler this was the really fun bit for me it started to boil at 6.40 but of a rush to turn off one of the elements here as it looked like it was going to boil over http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2686/431 ... 317d_m.jpg more boiling at 8.10 put the ic in took about 20 to 25 minutes to cool which seamed a long time all in

[WishboneBrewery]

Looks like you had fun

[DarloDave]

Sounds like a smooth first brewday. Nice one

[Andy]

Nice one, things get easier from here and you learn quickly!

[beer]

thanks all day went very smooth there's nothing like the smell of brewing beer very nice had a taste out of the fv last night and its looking good.the only real cock up Ive made is my boiler is to small only 5 gallon so quite a bit of loss to hops ect,
i ended up collecting four gallon.

wasn't sure if that was to much to top up so i left it at thatog was 1056, last night it was at 1016 fermentation looks like its slowing down so will keep checking to see if it drops any more.