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Homebrewing Beer

Brewing a modified Brewers Best Imperial Blonde Ale. The partial mash kit was the first one I ever brewed, and its one of my favorites. I took the recipe to Big Dans and he converted it to an all grain recipe, which I'm trying to see if I get the same results.

I love that place so much. I went in with a sparge diffuser idea that I'd seen on Brew Dogs, but he suggested a method that was $100 cheaper.
 
I had an interesting occurrence during brewing yesterday. I went through my usual hot break, so I started adding the base hops as usual. I noticed the wort wasn't boiling as vigorously as normal, so I checked my temperature with two different thermometers, both reading over 215 degrees. This proceeded on for the entire 60 minute boil. As a result, the wort didn't boil down to my usual 5.5 gallons, and I was left with about 6.5 gallons. My specific gravity was spot on though, so I put 5.5 gallons into the fermenter, then put the other gallon in a 1 gallon moonshine jug. The mini jug will be my experiment it appears.


And I came across this earlier today.
Aw0tPPa.jpg
 
The Imperial Blonde turned out very much like a Belgian Triple. It came in at around 8% abv, and while flavorful has a sweet aftertaste similar to a Belgian. I think when I brew it again, I'll use less fermentables to see if I can come up with a bolder flavor. My wife loves it though.
 
So I basically just tossed a half bottle of Henry McKenna 10yr in the vat right before bottling and it came out delicious.
 
If you follow the home improvement thread, you'll know I recently installed a large commercial sink outside my basement to wash my brewing equipment and smoking equipment. This is a huge improvement over my previous setup, where I'd haul 6 gallons of water at at time down to the basement to brew. I've got a tap to garden hose converter, a devoted garden hose, and an inline filter so I can run hot water directly from my hot water heater into the brew kettle. So instead of starting out with water around 60 degrees, I'll start out around 150, which should drastically cut down my brewing time. Between the mashing and the sparging, it was taking me forever to heat up the water. I'm planning on brewing again Saturday, and my hope is that it'll cut my brewing from around 4 to 4.5 hours down to about 2.5 hours.
 
tsywake said:
If you follow the home improvement thread, you'll know I recently installed a large commercial sink outside my basement to wash my brewing equipment and smoking equipment. This is a huge improvement over my previous setup, where I'd haul 6 gallons of water at at time down to the basement to brew. I've got a tap to garden hose converter, a devoted garden hose, and an inline filter so I can run hot water directly from my hot water heater into the brew kettle. So instead of starting out with water around 60 degrees, I'll start out around 150, which should drastically cut down my brewing time. Between the mashing and the sparging, it was taking me forever to heat up the water. I'm planning on brewing again Saturday, and my hope is that it'll cut my brewing from around 4 to 4.5 hours down to about 2.5 hours.
Click to expand...

I am now tumescent.
 
I ended up chickening out and not brewing the other night. I wasnt sure how long the new method would take, and in case it took the traditional 4-4.5 hours, I just didnt have that much time that evening, so I'll brew Sunday as planned.

I came across this earlier today. Its called the grainfather and will be available in the US sometime in November. Its as close to a set it and forget it crock pot all grain brewing system as you can get.

http://imgur.com/a/Frffv
 
tsywake said:
I ended up chickening out and not brewing the other night. I wasnt sure how long the new method would take, and in case it took the traditional 4-4.5 hours, I just didnt have that much time that evening, so I'll brew Sunday as planned.

I came across this earlier today. Its called the grainfather and will be available in the US sometime in November. Its as close to a set it and forget it crock pot all grain brewing system as you can get.

http://imgur.com/a/Frffv
Click to expand...

Saw that. Any idea of price? I'm also waiting on news about:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1708005089/picobrew-zymatic-the-automatic-beer-brewing-applia
 
I've not seen a price yet. I know there were only 100 that were bought online in New Zealand, and the guy in the album was one of the lucky ones.
 
A few pages back, I linked the info for using a 9v battery, a Qtip and brine to mark the brew kettle. I tried it out this morning and was very happy with the results. Itd probably look better if I used a more powerful current, but now I've got volume marks without having to cut a hole and insert a volume tube.

We also etched the glass carboys with 5 and 6 gallon volume marks, but arent pictured.
e80273a56bb35ddf5b1273e2c9c51fa8.jpg


3d87d3d4f5ba4bfd6441c5dade059dab.jpg
 
Lagunitas IPA is boiling. I love starting out with hot water. 20 minutes to get 3 gallons ready to mash. I believe I can realistically cut it down to 3 hours per batch. 2 of that is the mash and boil.
 
Stopped by the new Homebrew Clubhouse this afternoon. Its across the street from Stella Brew on Hawthorne Rd. Its a small store with a limited selection at the moment, but he's just starting up. It'll be nice to have a local homebrew specialty store in the Dash. Like them on FB and swing by to say hello.
 
HC guy has some weird ideas I'm wondering if they'll pan out:
-rent his all grain equipment and brew in the back of the store
-submit a recipe and a sample, and if someone buys all the ingredients for it you get 5% of the sale
 
He does. In talking with him yesterday, he's really excited about introducing people to homebrewing. He previously worked at Small Batch, and decided to open up shop. He's already good friends with Matt at Stella, so he's hoping they'll have some cross business between the two shops.
 
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