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