Foray into All-grain brewing

I have been wanting to try out an all-grain recipe for quite some time. And tonight was the night I got to try it. I had fashioned a lauter tun from a 5 gallon igloo cooler, a metal strainer that I bought from wal mart and about 6 inches of copper plumbing pipe I bought at a hardware store. Now I have to admit I was very proud of myself for coming up with this little baby, however, it failed miserably. I used more grain than my tun could reasonable hold and the strainer turned on its side in the bottom of the cooler. Sigh. however many good things did come out of it. The cooler held the temperature of the mash/grain very well and after creating a horrible mess in my kitchen I got a good amount of usable wort along with my sparge water. Its boiling now and it smells great. here's the ingredients I used:

9 lb. British Pale 2-row

12 oz. 60L British crystal

1 oz Northern Brewer Hops (Bittering, 90 minute boil)

1/2 oz. US Goldings Hops (Flavor, 15 minute boil)

1/2 Oz. US Goldings Hops (Aroma, 5 minute boil)

Belgian wit experiment (Part 2)

Well the experiment turned out very well. after adding the extra 1 lb. of light malt to the brew the original gravity was 1.058 and the final graviy was 1.017. the OG was .010 higher than the original brew which was expected. the alcohol content was 3.25, actually a little less than the original. I efinately didnt expect that. Very interesting.

Belgian Wit Experiment Cont.

bottled the first batch of Belgian Wit and FG was 1.014 making alcohol content 3.57%. modest.

Witch's Brew

I'm taking a quick break from the Belgian Wit experiment and brewing my own recipie. I call it wich es brew. OG was 1.050

The Wit Experiment (Part 1)

When my friend and I went into our local homebrew supply store this week we decided that we both wanted to try a Belgian wit type of beer. Now I'm the only one with all the equipment so he just buys the kit I make mine and his and when I bottle his up I give it back to him. simple arrangement and it seems to work out just fine. So after picking out our beer kits we started asking questions. I am interested in getting more involved in brewing and going all grain and he was just wanting to know to to kick his beer up a notch, Emeril style. So we decided to try an experiment. Its a small experiment but it amuses us. My friend and I decided that I would add just one extra pound of malt extract to his batch. Obviously it will have a higher OG and higher end alcohol content but how will it affect the overall taste of it? Is one pound enough to make the malt flavor too strong without balancing it with more specialty grains or bitter orange etc. Well either way it proves to be a fun time. I started the first batch without the extra malt on 04/16/09 and the og was 1.048. Its glugging and bubbling like a pro right now. very active. More details to follow soon, thanks for reading.

Making Nut Brown Ale

Currently brewing a Nut Brown Ale. Im assuming it will have a taste like Newcastle Brown Ale, but not sure, more posts to come tonight as it gets complete. 60 minute boil is going on now. :)

FG/AC of Black Lager

FG of the Black Lager ended up being 1.008, giving it a Alcohol Content of 2.73%, or 5.46 proof on 03/27/09

Black Lager Update 03/24/09

SG on black lager is 1.006 today, and it seems to be clearing up.

New Brew (Black Lager-Partial Extract)

Wednesday 03/18/09 I bottled my Cooper's HEritage Lager that I had brewed and began a new batch of black lager. I bought the kit from our local homebrew supply shop, check them out at here. I am used to simply boing water, putting in the syrup, filling and fermenting. This kit was not a syrup kit but a partial extract kit, I have to prepare the mash. add the hops and all of that fun stuff. I was nervous but I started it around 9pm and ended around midnight. It wasnt as hard as I thought it would be and it was actually more rewarding that the extract kits I have been using. After pitching the yeast OG was 1.034 and when I took a reading tonight SG is currently 1.015. I will update again in a few days. 

Ok, so I popped open a bottle of my first batch of homebrew. I have to admit I was very suprised at the taste. It is excellent and I am very impressed. I usually dont do things right but this is amazing. My wife doesnt like beer and she liked it. One of my best friends doesnt like beer, he's more into hard liquor, he loves it and is buying a brewkit next week. Wow. the color is a dark gold and the taste has a good body, yeasty undertones and an alcohol bite. Awesome! I put on a new brew last night 03-08-09 because I wanted more...and SOON! It is a Heritage lager so Im thinking it will be a heavier body with some more of a malt aroma. I will let you know how it turns out and pictures to be posted soon. And I tell you gentle reader ou may ask yourself how you can afford to homebrew and I ask you..."How can you afford not to!"

The First Post

So I just strated home brewing and I thought I'd post a blog on my experiences as well as other beer/brewing related things. I started fermenting my wort on 02/17/09 and it went very well. After my hydrometer reading were identical 2 days straight I bottled it up, which ended up being about a week later on 02/24/09. Now the bottles are sitting in my house for second fermentation. Ill examine them tonight and let you know. But for now I thought id post some things I found useful for myself in getting me started.

I bought the Cooper's Brew System from Amazon.com. Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Coopers-Brewery-Micro-Kit/dp/B0002F0O7W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1235584546&sr=8-1

the kit is awesome and seems to work pretty much effortlessly as opposed to other kits I had read about. The directions and DVD are very clear and easy to understand and the equipment is Top Notch! And they supply plenty of plastic bottles which are a good choice since there would be a lot of problems with glass bottles if that was the case. Primarily because they dont give and during fermentation the Co2 can cause the caps to pop or the bottles to even explode...bad stuff.

After bottling it I decided if I wanted to get any better than just pouribng extracts into fermentors and adding water I should do some reading and heres the 2 books I decided on.

1. The Complete Joy Of Homebrewing, 3rd edition. Link Here: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Homebrewing-Third-Harperresource-Book/dp/0060531053/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235602132&sr=8-1

2. Clone Brews. Link Here:http://www.amazon.com/Clone-Brews-Homebrew-Recipes-Commercial/dp/1580170773/ref=pd_sim_b_3