Over the weekend I did a boil off test and brewed the first beer with it. Below are the notes. I added some additional pics and short videos to the
Foundry Photo Album
Everything went relatively smoothly. I need to get used to using this new system and refine my process. This was the first time brewing in the house since I used to do Mr. Beer/Brew Demon batches. SWMBO complained about the smell so I will need set up some type of vent system, which shouldn't be too difficult as there's a window and or dryer vent that I can use. I also have an old vent fan that I can get hooked up.
Boil off test - 120v:
- starting volume 7 1/2 gallons
- water temp at start 121°
- approximately 35 minutes to bring the temperature to 155°
- 200° one hour and 28 minutes
- boiling at one hour 38 minutes
- 1 hour boil off = approximately 1/2 gallon.
- From 155° to boil 63 min
First Brew Day: Oberon clone
I set the time delay on the unit to have strike water at 165 when I got up in the morning. At 7:30 when I checked it it was about 20° below what I had set it for. (I will need to do a better job of calculating the time.)
I slowly drop the grain basket into the fermenter with no issues. I then slowly added the grains to the grain basket. Temperature didn’t fall quite as much as I anticipated so it’s a little bit higher mash than what the recipe called for currently at 157° and the mash temp should be about 150°.
Running the circulation pump, I lifted the lid to find that wort was flowing over the top of the green basket. I shut the pump off and stirred the grains, and the water level went back down. Restarted the pump and adjusted the flow and had no other issues. (Observation, I need a longer mash paddle. This one does the job but it’s just a little too short.)
Mash got down to 150° after about 45 minutes and the heating element started cycling on to maintain the temperature.
The mash finished at 9:47 AM. Lifting the grain basket was a little bit challenging considering the low ceiling height and the Foundry being on a small 24" high bench. I had to use a step stool to get leverage to lift it and let it rest on the edge of the unit so it could continue to drain. - May need to have a shorter stand to put the Foundry on to make it easier to lift the grain basket and keep an eye on the mash/wort. I may get some type of wench to help lift the basket.
Started the boil at 10:40 AM added the first hop edition 1 ounce Perle
The boil seems to be just a very gentle rolling boil definitely not super vigorous, but enough to do what it needs to do.
At 30 minutes added the second hop addition 1 oz. Hersbrucker
At 45 minutes into the boil, I added whirl flock and yeast nutrient, and put the immersion chiller in to sanitize it.
At one hour boil, turned off the power to the unit and added the 2 ounces of Saaz hops for flame out hops.
Flame out hops in for 15 minutes, then started cooling wort. Temperature of the wart fell below 200° during the flame out hops.
Cooling of the wart down to 68° took approximately 25 minutes from 200° I used the pump during the cooling which seemed to help with the cooling.
