The Doomed Brew...
Thanks - I was a bit worried about caramelizing the grains since I couldn't get them to sit in the water nicely without resting on the bottom of the pot.
One more question - the foam that builds up when boiling your wort, I thought I read elsewhere that this can be taken off which will help with the overall clarity of the brew. Is this true, or should that remain there?
We actually just talked about the hot break (foam) less than a week ago. Where have you been dude??
As I stated then, that foam is proteins, some hops, tannins, and brewing salts if you used them. You don't need to skim it unless you really want to. I never do. Once the boil is over, all of that will settle to the bottom of the kettle and become cold break.
I personally would not have thrown out the batch until it was done just to see if it was drinkable. The only part I found horribly wrong is your friend didn't sanitize anything.
Did you fire him yet?
I remember that conversation - just had problems finding it, that's all. 
I wanted to confirm things.
The batch is not thrown out yet. I may (emphasis on may) keep it, but I am not sure yet. If I keep it, I'll have to transfer over to the secondary tonight as we will be brewing another batch tonight and I need the carboy to be freed up (at least one of the carboys). I haven't been able to take a gravity reading in a few days since my hydrometer broke, but I'll take a reading tonight. If the fermentation is done, then I'll take another taste then transfer over.
Thought I would offer an update...
At the encouragement of cubx I decided to go ahead and bottle the batch just to see what would happen. If it tastes bad, then that's fine, but I could use the experience in bottling again, so I might as well go through the process.
I thought I was going to go straight to the bottle from the primary, but when I got all of my bottles and caps ready, I discovered that water got into the place where I store my caps. The result? Rusty caps. I figured this batch of beer didn't need any more off-flavors, so I decided to simply transfer the beer over to a secondary where it is sitting now.
The good news is that I went ahead and brewed another batch of beer last night (Scottish 80/-) which went extremely well. There was only one or two mistakes. The one mistake that could prove to have the worst effect was when I was cooling down my wort. Being in Minnesota, I thought it would be a good idea to simply put the kettle outside in the snow, build up some snow around it and let nature do its thing. Of course, its been a while since I've built a snow fort, so I completely forgot about the insulatory nature of snow. After about a half an hour, we were just down to 140 degrees. This was not good at all. I realized my mistake, brought the kettle inside, sat it in my sink, filled the sink with ice, and started running cold water through the sink with a spillover outlet. That worked extremely well bringing the temp down to 75 degrees in about 10 minutes.
I don't think this should affect the brew too much, but I do wish I had thought about the fact that the snow would keep the wort warm rather than cool it quickly. Oh well, ce la vie.
The sink is a great idea for cooling wort. Screw those fancy wort chillers... I have done it without using ice and it takes about 15 minutes to cool down my wort to below 80F.
Actually using the snow is a really good idea, BUT, and this is the big one, you have to remember to keep stirring the wort. Essentially you are using the outside of your pot to cool down your wort. The snow makes the whole surface area of the pot usable for cooling, but you have to make sure you are continually moving the hot wort against the surface of the pot and not letting the wort just sit there.
DT
Well, using snow can be a good idea, but you also need to repack the snow several times. The heat from the pot will create a little air pocket between the pot and snow. This airpocket will be surprising warm.
As far as stirring the wort - I didn't want to take the top off the pot as it was a windy day. I really didn't want to risk having anything fall into the wort.
Ok I'm going to shock a few of you here...
I don't use my wort chiller anymore! It doesn't fit on my faucet and I don't feel like buying an adapter. When I'm done brewing, I cover my pots and let them sit overnight, usually 24 hours. They use entirely natural cooling.
I have brewed well over 50 gallons this way with ZERO bad effects.
Yes you obviously want to cool your wort down as quick as possible, but whether it takes 20 minutes or 6 hours, as long as nothing touches your beer, it is fine. Putting it in the snow was a good idea. I don't know why you were worried about the temperature dropping ~70 degrees (assuming it was just boiling) in a half hour. I've had mine take 2+ hours to get that low. Didn't hurt a thing.
Man I can't believe how much you guys are stressing over small things.
Maybe a little green elf came in and contaminated your beer. Perhaps the magnetic pull from the moon might have negatively charged the wort and will cause off flavors.
Would you guys stop worrying so much? Good lord!
The only crime I've seen committed lately was webby's friend using unsanitized buckets. Hell, I will do the execution on that one since webby won't fire him.
To reiterate, yes wort does need to be cooled fast, but ya know what, sometimes it ain't possible! Keep it covered, as airtight as possible, don't let ANYTHING unsanitized touch it, and see what happens. In all likeliness, it will be fine.
As for extreme paranoia, this is not brain surgery or quadruple bypass, it is beer. There is some margin for error. Some mistakes are ok and won't kill it.
Webby, quit worrying so much. I completely understand the paranoia some people here have. I was the same way. Now that I have been brewing for nearly 2 years, and done over 250 gallons, I can tell you much of the worries I read here are over reactions.
I'm sure you are fine. Go drink and beer and chill out.
Oh yes, and even Papazian recommends in his book to not bother stirring during cooling. Yes I have done it, and it CAN help a little bit, but it's not a big deal.
If your wort takes 10 hours to cool down, cover it, and let it go.
I started cooling mine down last night at 6 pm and racked it into the primary TODAY at 6 pm. It had 24 hours to cool naturally.
cubx,
I'm not really worried about these things at all - I just enjoy telling how well I think I did. Trust me, there is a lot more in my life to stress over than beer.
I also am a bit of a perfectionist - its something that runs in my family. I used to play guitar, and anyone that I've played with will tell you that I was a bit of a pain in the *ss about making sure everyone was very much in tune.
I notice the small details, and I always look for ways to improve.
As far as this last batch is concerned, I'm quite excited about it - it went so well that I am certain its going to be a terrific beer. I do wish I had cooled it down faster as every text I have read recommends doing so. Will I actually taste the difference? Probably not, but I would like to get to the point where I can taste the difference.
So don't worry about me worrying - I'm not really worried at all. 