Teaching Friends How to Brew Day!

Hey there,

Its been a while and I've been real busy with the brewery and other things too. Last Saturday was the AHA's annual "Teach a friend to brew" day so I had to get my brew buddies over to celebrate the event and to brew up some beer! We brewed up a 20 gallon batch of our favorite APA and took 8 hours to complete the session. We didn't brew too much last summer due to the real hot days. Now that the weather has finally cooled off, its full speed ahead with the brewing!Bob and Brad were with me assisting when needed and we were treated to a free lunch delivered by my wife's friend Bobbie. Thanks! it was great! The session went better than I expected and Bob got to take 5 gallons home with him to ferment. I ended up keeping 15 gallons, 11 of which was racked into the conical, and the remainder racked into my 6 gallon carboy. It is now fermenting nicely at 67 degF and everyone is anxious to try some! Easy boys an girls...we need to wait a few more weeks until it is done! LOL! The week before, Bob and I brewed up 5 gallons of Porter which was gleaned from a recipe that is supposed to be from 1850. I'll be bottling that real soon in a day or 2. Can't wait to have one!
Anyways, Here's some pics of Saturdays session.





Here's the 50' copper wort chiller being pulled from a bucket of starsan.

Here's Bob and the fox that lives across the street.

Here she is again. Boy does she like beer...!! ;)

Here we are adding the secret ingrediant to the boiling wort

Here's the spent grain in the mash tun. We used 46 lbs of grain for this batch.

Below is the boil kettle full of the just run off wort. Flame on!

Below is a shot of the wort being run off into the mash tun. The run off was crystal clear!

Here's a nice shot ofthe boil kettle and the custom top I made for it.

Inside the boil kettle showing the 1/2" 50' stainless steel coil used as a heat exchanger and a chiller. I didn't use this as a chiller as I am still working out the processes.

Here's the plumbing..!! I know it looks like speghetti, but I do know what it does. See the sketch from my previous posts.

Boil kettle in the foreground.

Here's Bob checking for thermal loss. The insulated mash tum worked better than expected.

Another shot of the HERMS and plumbing.

Here's Brad and me mashing in the grains. (I'm the guy doing all the stirring)

Bob and I discussing the days events so far.

Here I am taking a peek under the hood.

Bob in the background and the 3-5 gallon buckets of milled grain.

Yours truley and a full shot of the brewery.

Thanks for stopping by..!

Have questions....feel free to ask.

Cheers...

(_)3