A few pictures from This past weekend.

Temp set at 68F

Update

Been a little busy during the week with training at the academy so I haven't had to much time to update. The past 3 weekends I have been brewing. I brewed a remake of my first summer wheat  4 weeks ago. It is bottled up and I sampled it this weekend. The color, aroma, and overall taste is much improved. I changed the kind of hops and the timing of them. I also changed some ingredients and used lemon grass for the first time, I can't wait to taste it once its aged a few more weeks.

We also brewed a Bell's Two Hearted IPA, well a shot at it atleast. Everything went well and the aroma is awesome. I had it sit in the primary for almost two weeks then transferred to the secondary. This weekend I added the dry hops and will let that sit for 7 more days until bottling if the gravity is right.


This past weekend we brewed a Sierra Nevada remake. I had some help with some buds and we brewed a 10 gal batch for the first time.  Everything went really well and didn't have to many issues. We did realize that we only had one yeast packet so we had to pitch half in half. It seemed to be okay because it only took less then 24hrs for it to start bubbling. It could be from all the yeast nutrients that we put in it lol. They are also sitting in my kegerator at a controlled temp of 68F. We still have a Cream Ale and my Rye Pale to make so we should be pretty busy drinking and brewing these next few weeks.

Summer ? _insert name

Today we brewed A summer something. The color was unique during the run offs and after boil. I brewed over at a friends house and forgot to bring the camera. But I will go by tomorrow to take a few pictures to show you the color. Its full of orange(10mins),lemon(5mins),coriander(10mins), and grains of paradise(5mins). Not sure how this will turn out. If its worth anything I will post the recipe.

Rye Pale Ale

Yesterday I decided to brew a Rye Pale Ale. I enjoy going to Terripan Brewery so I got the inspiration to make one. I had to order the grains since the local shop didn't carry alot of ingredients that I put in this recipe.

Everything went smooth. I was a little off with hitting the first infusion. I hit 172F and got it to 152F. I was shooting for 154F. No biggy just for future reference I will need to shoot a little higher due to the mash tun taking a lot of the heat. I re adjusted the heat when I added 1 gal at the 50 min mark and got it right at 154-155 to give me 3.25 gals of wort. I added 3.5 gals for the mash out at 188-189F and hit right at 167-168F.

I think I need to have a little more wort prior to boiling and came a little short.

 Well, when I started the boil it started snowing pretty heavy. I was afraid that when I was cooling the wort that some of the snow was getting in the wort. Hopefully it didn't bother it to much.
I forgot to take a final reading before sealing it up but I did take a reading pre boil and got a pretty high reading, which can't be right b/c I know my efficiency can't be that good so I will just have to take a reading in a week to see where its at.

Estimated Pre Boil OG: 1.046

Estimated Original Gravity: 1.061

Estimated Final Gravity: 1.017

Estimated Alcohol By Volume: 5.73%

Update notes:
02/14/10
Man the yeast started working 5 hrs after brewing on 02/12/09 and it has been going Strong for two days. I wish I would have used a carboy to watch it, but I know the blow off would be crazy.

Yesterday's first attempt with AG I think went pretty well. I will have to make a few changes on the next brew. Notes that I wrote down:Inital strike was 177-178 I let it sit in mash tun for 3-5 mins. Added the grains and it hit around 153-154 which is pretty close to what I was aiming for. I took a reading after 55 mins and the temp dropped to 149-151. 2nd stike was 177-179 hit 157-158( Next time I will shoot for 190) waited 10 mins and drew the rest of the wort off after vorlaufing a few times. I had a boil off when I added the Irish Moss 45 mins in the boil. Other then those side notes I think everything else went good. I got the wort cooled to 77F in 15-20 mins before pitching the yeast that I had started two days in advance. I took a reading after pitching the yeast, I used a refractometer to take a reading and got 13.6 brix take that number and times it by 4 and got 1.054. Pretty excited to try this nut brown out.