Brew Day!

It's been over 7 months since my last brew. Finally with all my additions I am ready to go to all grain 5 gallon batches. The two I made today were a Red Hook ESB clone and a Firestone Walker Double Barrel clone. Here are some pictures of how the brew day went....

New brewery setup.





Grains ready for some hot water!



MMMM, smells good.



Recirculating the wort to clear it out.



Getting ready for the boil.



Took about 8 hours from start to finish to brew both beers. I'm really happy with the setup I have so far. Much easier than trying to boil and mash on my electric stove.

I will have to see how they turn out. Both had low starting gravities so my cooler may not be as efficient as I hoped. I'll probably brew another batch in two weeks!!

New Supplies

Here are some pictures of the new brewing supplies I have purchased and made.

New kettle from a keg.


With a false bottom and center pickup.


Sight glass and thermometer too.


Mash tun from a 10 gallon cooler.





50' copper coil immersion chiller.


High flow March pump.


Each hose connection has stainless steel quick connects.

New Brewery

The new brewery is almost up and running. It's been far too long since my last post and my last batch. Here's what I'll have set up...

15.5 gallon keg has been transformed into a keggle complete with spout, screen bottom, thermometer and sight glass similar to one here.

10 gallon rubbermaid cooler has been converted into a mash tun like the one here.

I now have an outdoor propane burner to do all my brewing.

I have constructed a wort chiller out of 50' of copper piping.

I also have a March pump to transfer all my liquids between vessels.

I'll upload pictures tomorrow and maybe have a batch going before the weekend!!

Good News and Bad News

Well so far the only bad thing I've heard about the Vanilla Porter and Bourbon Vanilla Porter is that they are over carbonated. That I can live with. I'm assuming it has something to do with the fact that I used regular sugar instead of the corn sugar I used on all my other batches. Some like the plain vanilla one better, some liked the bourbon one better but they all liked them both. This is one recipe I will make again and hopefully it will improve every time.

The bad news is that my Imperial Stout flopped. It didn't carbonate at all and I had to throw it all out. The only thing I can think of is that when I boiled the sugar in water to dissolve it I didn't cool it down enough before I added it to the batch and it killed all the yeast.

My next batch is going to be a Barleywine. Keep you updated on how it turns out. Email or message me on FB if you want some of the beers I've been talking about or that I have coming up and I will try to save some for you.

New Brew

I bottled the Vanilla Porter and Bourbon Vanilla Porter. Smelled very strong so I hope they turn out OK. Two more weeks until I can pop one of those open so I'll let you know.

Since summer is coming up soon, I decided to try and brew some hard lemonades and such. I looked online for some recipes and decided to try some smaller batches. I bought three Carlo Rossi 4L wine jugs, chucked the wine and brewed three one gallon batches. I'll have one hard lemonade, one hard pink lemonade, and one hard orange(ade). Should end up with around 5-6% alcohol. Sounds good to me! I also think I want to freeze some into hard lemonade pops for hot summer days....

Bottling

Ok, well the gravity isn't exactly where I want it to be on my Vanilla Porter but it will have to do. I really want this thing off my kitchen counter and into some bottles. Still have to wait another few weeks until it is drinkable.

I'll check my Old Rasputin clone tomorrow to see where it's at. I may be bottling two beers tomorrow!

Keep you guys posted!

(Bourbon) Vanilla Bean Porter

Brewed a new batch of brew!! Per Jeff's request I found a recipe for a Vanilla Bean Porter. This one has a bit of a twist as they add bourbon too which sounds amazing! Made up a 5 gallon batch and will bottle half, then add the bourbon and bottle the other half. I'll let you all know how it turns out and I'm sure some of you will be trying it :)

Recipe:

9.0# Light Liquid Malt Extract
1.5# Munich Malt
1.0# Caramel 120L
0.5# Caramel 40L
1.0# Pale Chocolate Malt

1.0 OZ Magnum (60 min)
0.5 OZ E.K. Golding (10 min)

American Ale Yeast

Vanilla Bean (Secondary)
Bourbon (Just before bottling)

Measured OG 1.082 giving me a potential % alcohol 8-9%! Whoohoo!