Nut Brown Brew Day

I wanted to brew yesterday and Sharon wanted to take Mary to try out a church, so I got up at 6 am to brew. I actually started the night before with setup and steeping my specialty grains, along with filling the kettle. This way I rolled out of bed, started the burner and I was moving. Got the water to a boil before 6:45 and was cooling the batch by 7:40. Cooling was a bit more problematic. The ground water temp has risen and I only had a single gallon jug of ice form my recirculating ice water system. In the end I got the wort down to around 75 and then tossed it in the fridge. I was done with cleanup and everything by 9. As of 7 PM there was still no activity in the fermenter.

I had hoped to be writing about a finished kegerator, but I have 2 outstanding issues. One of the taps I got was bad and I will be sending it to Northern Brewer for a new one. The second issue was that I was ordering tailpiece assemblies from BeverageFactory.com, but they haven't even shipped it after placing the order a week ago. I will go back to checking the local homebrew shops to see if I can't pick the parts up and cancel my order, with a hope that I will have a kegerator missing one tap by the weekend.

Tasted the Lefse Blonde last night and it has really come around with some cold conditioning. I really enjoyed it and it will be quite tasty for this late spring, early summer.