For the most part the dedicated room improved my brew day. I'm not competing for the kitchen when people are hungry and I don't have to walk across the house for every piece of brew gear. Instead I just turn around and take two steps and have the room to myself.
As expected there are some kinks to work out. I originally planned on running a "T" from the water line and run water by the door where the burner's sit. Sometime during the build I decided this wasn't worth it because the sink is only 4' from the door, my mistake.
I realized during the brew that the faucet I chose for the sink does have a standard fitting so my faucet to garden hose connector won't work. This was OK for yesterday because it was still 50 degrees f but January in N.Y. is more like 0 degrees f so hooking to the hose outside is less appealing. Also it caused my burner area to become a hazard.
I've also recently started whirlpooling and cooling with a plate chiller which has come with some problems of it's own. I have a chugger pump and if you stop it during during whirlpool or cooling it doesn't like to start up again. Apparently the fix is to drill the impeller with a 17/64th drill bit. I hate to do this to a pump I paid $160+ for but I guess I don't have a choice, it's a super pain in the ass when the pump stops working. I have to switch to the immersion chiller and possibly finish the whirlpool by hand.
All in all brew day in the new Horse Barn Brewery was a success. I brewed an IPA because I'm completely out of beer after a 6 week hiatus to build the brew room and I wanted something grain to glass in a short amount of time. All the hops went into the whirlpool and they smelled amazing (Chinook, Cascade Centennial and Amarillo). I missed my numbers by .003 which I didn't think was too bad considering I ended up boiling for an extra 20 minutes (at a lower heat) while I worked out my pump/chilling issues. I was short by 1/2 gallon which explains why my gravity was high, no big deal and not bad for day 1.
Here's to many more happy brew days in the Horse Barn Brewery, Cheers!
