Gather round children, for I come bearing words of encouragement, rather than disgrace (reference my Apocalypse post of two months ago). As we speak (or rather, as you read the words I previously typed… previous, that is, to right now! Right… NOW!), my freshly-brewed Dunkelweizen is busily bubbling away in the coat closet. I wanted to pass on two tidbits for you fellow homebrewers out there:

The first is a pile-on to the General’s comments of a few weeks ago. He remarked about how freezing a jug of (distilled) water and then dropping the ice directly in your wort to rapidly cool it worked well, but urged caution when cutting the plastic jug off the frozen water. Well, I took it a step further and used a couple of plastic cups. That way when it came time to cool the wort, I just immersed the outside of the cups in some warm water to melt the outer edge of ice, then dropped that in. Less mess, and less chance of a knife mishap, especially if you like to combine brewing with drankin, as I do. This definitely saved 15-20 min of cooling the wort in an icebath, which is the most boring part of the whole process besides waiting for the water to boil.

The second is a [possible] solution to the Sgt’s recent clogged-airlock-fermentation-explosion disaster. If you do primary fermentation in a 5-gallon plastic bucket, as I do, try setting it in a big trash bag–one with a pull-tie at the top, then pull the bag up around the bucket and pull it tight around the top, leaving the airlock unobstructed, of course. That way if the foamy goodness gets out of hand and happens to clog the airlock, when she blows the top off the bucket, the destruction will be contained. Still probably ruin the batch, but hey, there are coats in the coat closet to think of as well. Monitor that airlock well during the first 24-48 hours and this hopefully will be a no-factor.

Right then… happy brewing, and happy drinking.