Brewed up another batch tonight, this one a nice coffee stout. Specific gravity ended up at 1.040 right after I mixed the wort with the water. May have actually put too much water in, not sure — the bucket I do primary ferments in now has a more-than-23-liter capacity, so I may be in for a surprise with the carboy. If that happens, I think I’ll keep the remainder in my second bucket, even though it’s usually best to dump it. (I’ll steep it in even more coffee and see what comes of it; if it fails, well, it was extra anyway.)
The other day, while I was in Seoul, I bounced through a few chemist shops in Jongro 3-ga. They were disappointing though I didn’t expect much. (Ah, sometimes having low expectations doesn’t even help!) I really truly want an autosiphon, and nobody seems to have one in stock online, but the chem shops were all, “A what?” I did get a nice big funnel, though, and I saw some big nice glass carboys with a valve at the bottom.
I love having a valve at the bottom of my bucket for primary fermentation: it lets me check what’s going on, take specific gravity readings, and even taste the stuff at various stages of development. But the carboys I saw were also, well, let’s just say and arm and a leg might cover the cost of one. So for now, I’ll stick with the regular kind, and try find an autosiphon!
By the way, I only got around to brewing this batch so late on Sunday because I spent most of Saturday and Sunday moving around furniture, tidying up, and so on. Moving furniture that’s been sitting in one place for ages inevitably means mopping all the floors, which is exactly what I did today. Still have my desk to move, but that’s all, and the place is in good shape now.
Then I spent an hour typing in a vaguely-guesstimated (on dates, but not consultations) record of all the times I met with students in the past semester. I was told that Monday is the deadline… on Friday afternoon! As usual, discovering things at the last minute, navigating one of the worst GUIs ever, and getting stuff done to deadline is a tough thing, but I guess I’ve gotten better at it!
Didn’t get to that stack of grading, though; nor did I manage to order any of the groceries or supplies I need. So I’ll do that tomorrow morning, hopefully all of it though I think the grading will require more time. But it’s 3am and I need to sleep tonight. Hope the fermentation has started on my coffee stout by tomorrow!
But I also have a few story crits to email out, a book to finish reading and review (yes, N.K., yours!), and probably tons of other stuff that’s escaping my memory. Which means it really is time to sleep. Next time, I promise, something not-beer-related, and probably SF-related.