Pre-Brew-Ritual

My recipes are formulated well in advance of brew day, but I do review them the night before.
Then I get up, take a shit, and go to the bagel store for a breakfast sandwich before brewing.
I start by getting my single tier brew rig out, getting water into the kettles, and firing up asap.
Then I start weighing out my ingredients and milling my grain.

After doughing in, I usually will do other jobs around the brewery (dry hopping carboys, racking, kegging, etc) and start to heat up my sparge water.

After collecting both sets of runnings, I clean my MLT, start getting my plate chiller and inline oxygenator ready, sanitize some carboys, and rehydrate dry yeast (if using dry yeast).

After the boil is complete I chill, fill, pitch, and clean.

 

My ritual as of late is to get everything totally organized and then completely screw it all up.

 

koopa - and what happens if the plumbing doesn't work "Then I get up, take a shit." Are you out of your element?

 

Two word solution: Upper Decker!

 

Sounds like me.

 

Pre-brew ritual: Watch pet chickens in flight...pondering symmetry of internal organs of chickens according to Julian calendar and then brew beer such that said chickens have spent grain for the next two weeks : )

 

Start heating up strike water, start coffee, take a crap, and then, time permitting and GF at work, JO.

 

Fuckin' hilarious!

 

I don't look for a beer until my wort is cooling. Otherwise, I mostly do what you say, but it's not really ritualistic. Ritualistic would be saying a prayer to Ninkasi, making an incision in my forearm with the sword of Gambrinus, etc. Sanitizing and reviewing your notes is simply "not being stupid."

 

Failing to plan is planning to fail

 

My ritual since I usually brew on Wednesday - clean everything the night before, wait for the gardener to finish his weekly mow and blow (and let the grass settle again since I'm allergic). Move the gear out, crush the grain while strike heats and go from there.

And I do actually have a piece of ritual, ritual in my day. When I strike the burner for the HLT, I also light a stick of prayer incense to curry favor with the beer gods. Seriously I have three large bundles of Buddhist prayer incense in the brewery and one stick gets light every brew day. These days since I have a statue of Guanyin by my waterfall, she usually gets a stick too while I sit and wait for the process to begin.

 

My ritual is the night before the brew w/ my cohort I let my kettles
sit in sani' overnight.
Then the next day I hookup my thermometer & LARGE kettle full of water
& start the boil.
Then I go outside, pound a brew & get some fresh air while
I am wating for the water to reach boil.

Every other Sunday.
Cheers
z

 

why do you sanitize your kettles before you brew? The act of boiling the wort will sanitize them. Cleaning them out (if you didn't after the brew), I can see that.

I have no ritual. Pull out the system, set it up and go. My recipe has already been formulated before hand. Getting volumes in the kettles and heating, as well as milling grain and measuring out hops (to me anyway) is more process than a ritual.

 

I have to go through and clean my kitchen entirely, do all dishes, take out the trash, recycling, etc., before I can brew. It's nice to have the whole place squared away before I wreck it again.

 

No real ritual for me and only a loose routine dictated by the necessities of the task at hand. I often finalize my recipe formulation that morning, but the recipe is usually close to done in my head before that. It just needs to be plugged in to promash so I can get all my exacts in order.

I will often eat four fried eggs with picante sauce as my brew day breakfast, but this isn't 100% of the time nor is it really attached to brew day. More of a Saturday morning thing.

 

It's just habit, because I reuse to sani' for all my other equipment (carboy, airlock, etc) throughout the process.
Also, I'm really paranoid about bacteria...we clean out the kettles pretty well after a night of brewing,
but I'm a better-safe-than-sorry kinda guy.

 

You are a sick, sick individual.

I like that in a person.

 

You are appealing to the wrong gods. Buddha's not into beer. (I dunno about this Guanyin chick. She might be cool.)

I would suggest sacrificing a goat to Thor. You can't go wrong there.

 

Goat tends to attract more law enforcement attention here in town. Just saying.

And Guanyin, she's pretty chill, she's (or way back in history - he) is sorta kinda the Buddhist saint of compassion and mercy. She'd understand my need for a beer.