AG#2 underway...

[Shippo]

So at long last AG#2 is started. Not the most satisfactory start to the day though.

The good points:
Prepped as much as possible last night
Improved brewday checklist to hand
SWMBO has disappeared off to the out-laws to give me space and time to brew

The problems so far:
Started much later than planned.
HLT has a small leak from around one of the two elements, not enough to prevent use, but enough to render it useless, so I'm heating up 20l in arctic conditions on one element - at least I know now why the fuse tripped for AG#1, I thought it was the element and swapped that out, but now I know better...
Weighed out all the grain only to find that the container wasn't balanced properly on the scales - I just have to hope that all the different grains were over by the same proportion... Think I need to find a bigger set of digital scales at an affordable price.

Still, it's all part of the learning process and I'm not the least bit disheartened (at least not yet ). HLT is approaching the right temperature, Mash Tun is pre-heating so nearly ready to get this show on the road!

[floydmeddler]

How did it all end up Shippo?

[Shippo]

Given the way the day started, the outcome seems to have proved my optimism worthwhile, although there were some more hiccups along the way. Tried to get some photos to document the progress only to find a flat battery in the camera, and I had another near-miss when I remembered just in time that I hadn't fitted the hop strainer to the boiler, in fact I hadn't actually made the new one! Ten frantic minutes later and a hastily cobbled together solution was in place, and in the end it worked perfectly. The OG post-boil was right on target, volume was a bit down but I think that's because I lost more than expected trying to get up to the boil in the cold temperatures, so that's one to compensate for next time.

All in all it worked out just fine, and I can now start negotiating for permission to brew again next weekend - got to get stocks up before Christmas!

[Deebee]

I had the same problem once with weighing. Now i use a pot that fits the scales perfectly and basically weigh out 1-2 kilos as a time and keep a running total. works a treat, just takes longer to do.

[Shippo]

Ironically, that's exactly what I did last time, but this time I moved the weighing and measuring out to the brewhouse (garage) instead of the kitchen and thought it would be quicker to weigh it out in one go - in the end of course it took longer... All is well though, the fermentation was bubbling away like crazy last night!