Hoppy Brewing

Well, I’m one step closer to all grain brewing. I got a hold on a used keg from New Belgium Brewing. I just need to go pick it up tomorrow and I’ll have 15.5 gallons of glorious beer boiling capacity. Now I just need to get my hands on a propane burner to boil that much liquid. I hope my budget can get me everything I need I also went to Home Depot and picked up supplies for a hopback. It all cost about $10 and I’m really excited to try it out on my IPA. I made it out of PVC pipe and a couple of end caps, it’s really easy to make it. Once again, as soon as I can replace my stolen camera, I’ll throw up some pictures. If you don’t know what it is, a hopback is connected between the boil pot and the cooling pot and is essentially a strainer that you put hops into and the hot wort then drains through this bed of hops and takes some wonderful flavors and aromas with it. In addition, because it is a closed system, you stand to keep more of the highly volatile compounds because they cannot evaporate out of the system.