The homebrew update



So, as usuall, my beer making yesterday didn't go as smooth as I tried so hard to make it. No matter how hard I plan ahead, something always goes wrong, but the beer seems to turn out ok.

Disaster strikes:

Grains didn't all make it into the grain bag, so I had to filter the grains out of the pot after letting them steep directly in the water. I got rid of the grains by pouring the mixture through a mesh filter into one of the fermentation buckets and back to the pot.

Forgot to add the Irish moss! It's put in there to clarify the beer, so it'll just look a little cloudy and give you a headache (maybe).

Didn't cool the wort quick enough (to prevent contamination). Cooled the wort itself pretty fast, but when I combined it with the other water, the temperature rose to 120F (and I was out of ice water), and you have to let it cool 80-75F before you can pitch the yeast. I'm going to make my own wort chiller for the next batch so this never happens again.

Pitched the yeast at 80 degrees, then read the bottle, which says to pitch it at 70. Hope I didn't kill the little guys.

When filling the airlock (supposed to use vodka, but I only had gin) I accidentally spilled a couple drops of gin into the beer.

Bottoms up!

*fingers crossed*