Dog'House Brew #001 is well and truly underway!
Brew day was yesterday, followed by the biggest bangers and mash dinner with pear and toffee crumble for pud, hence the lack of post last night!
Decided to do a Woodfordes Great Eastern Ale, and the whole thing went very smoothly. We sterilised everything to within an inch of it's life. And made sure we were very methodical.
There did come a point in the evening which I'm sure every brewer has faced, when the previous off-the-cuff throwaway mumblings to my lovely wife of "it can ferment in the garage" and "the conservatory will be fine" were finally replaced with the much more honest - "it needs to ferment in the kitchen because the garage is too cold and the conservatory is too warm.....er...." followed by a very sheepish smile.
"Riiiiggghhhttt........" came the reply.
It's fermenting away happily now, (in the kitchen
) with a two-inch head of foam and a bubbling through the airlock every 10-20 seconds or so. Yes, I've been timing it! Well it IS my first brew, so what do you expect...?A couple of final points to mention. The OG was only about 1035 or so, prior to pitching the yeast. I think this may be because we put two litres extra water in by mistake - it's difficult to wrestle a pressure barrel of liquor and measure at the same time - need to think about that and possibly get another FV. Also we may not have quite got all the wort out of the cans. Next time I will be more careful with the former, and will purchase a washing-up brush to add to my rapidly multiplying brew kit, which can be sanitised and used to flush out those precious few scrapes of concentrated yummyness.
The Yeast
The Cans!
Stir away, Philip. You do the hard work - I'll record it for posterity.
Temp looks OK...
In with the yeast.
Come on! Hurry Up. I'm thirsty. Oh, this must be the patience bit.
24 hours later - it's working!
Going...
Going...
Gone!
Oh, and my afore-mentioned wife also had a go sharing the yeast-pitching with me and my erstwhile assistant, Phil. We'll convert her yet.
