We finally got around to kegging our first whole grain brew. Pretty simple, as we both have done it dozens of times with our extract based beers. This time, however, we had the beer chilled to 40 degrees. This got the carbonation going quickly, so we were able to sample the brew within a couple of hours. It was good.
Time to brew some more!
We have fermentation!
We were able to put the fermenters into their new home and call it a night. We will keg them in approximately three weeks.
We finally had the pump priming thing figured out and we were able to pump into the fermenters, pitch yeast and airlock in no time at all.
The Blickmann plate chiller is awesome. Works like a charm. Boiling to 67 degrees in no time at all. Tap water was 60 degrees. We need to work on the cooling water connections. They are the cause of the water on the ground.
Costly, but worth it without a doubt.
I was impressed with how cold the propane tank got during the boil. Frosty
We had an easier time getting the mash into the boil kettle. The pump did not want to start (switch issue) but once we got it going, it pumped strong. We used a hop bag in order to not test our false bottom. The false bottoms worked very well, however.
Okay, we got our Hot Liquor Tank filled with 12 gallons and heated to 170 degrees. We fired up the pump to move it into the Mash Tun and had major problems. The pump kept losing it’s prime and our fancy quick disconnects were leaking at the hose connection. We lost a lot of water and what we did get into the tun was not at a good temperature.
We removed the crimps from the hose, and that seems to have fixed the problem of leaking. We heated up some more water and got it to go finally, but we mashed about 10 degrees lower than we were aiming for.
We have the brewery finished enough to brew a batch (or so we think). The shadows are getting long, so our elaborate testing plan goes out the window. Let’s brew!
Refrigerator box fun.
Los Angeles Brewers 
