Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Double Brews!

Yesterday, I got to try out the new system and all went pretty well! I brewed up an IPA which is going to end up as an interesting beer.. My efficiency was around 60% again which sucks, and I also didn't use enough sparge water and ended the brew day with only 4.75 gallons instead of the 5.5 I was kinda banking on. I guess I'm not really sure what the consequences would have been using cold water to sparge, if there are any, but I decided I'd be fine with the 6 gallons pre-boil I had. I need to look into the differences between fly and batch sparging too because low efficiencies piss me off. So essentially with a higher concentrated boil and low efficiency my planned 60 something IBUs is now near 100... hahaha true northwest style :) Everything else was good though! I had some pictures I wanted to put up, but I guess SWMBO (she who must be obeyed, a brewboard term hahaa) took the camera and dumped all the pictures into some folder at her school. So next brewday I'll do some documentation on the system. I really enjoy it. With the IPA too, I'm using Pacman yeast for the first time which is also awesome.
Today then I got the St. Patty's Day Stout brewed up! I'm really really very excited for this one. I took the Black Hole Stout upped the flaked barley and added a pound of dark munich and half pound of crystal 120. I cut back on the base malt though, so hopefully (the bad boy's boiling right now) I'll hit the OG right around 1.048. I also today, it's been a good couple days :), kegged the Murder City Stout for the dudes that are coming out for the show tomorrow. It's . . . Interesting. I definitely like it! But I learned my lesson about molasses. It has an almost smoked flavor to it from the molasses. I'd have to pull out my notes to see what kind of molasses it was, but I didn't expect the smokiness. It landed at exactly 10% alcohol though, so that was a goal achieved. hahaha

I also cracked open an Abbot. It's not carbed but things are already changing for the better. It doesn't seem as watered down, the color was PERFECT, and the aroma is still great. So that's exciting. And Liberation is still quite a delight :D that ones not going to be around for long (YUM!)

Man, this stout smells so damn good! So I'm back to the boil pot . . .

Brew On!
~KYLE

2 comments:

Kevin said...

SWMBO= she WHOM must be obeyed. I love a good whom.

Colin said...

Murder City Stout, love it.Molasses can do some weird shit to beer, I've never really figured out how to use it without knowing it's there in the front. We're headed to the MCD show tonight.Doing a brew/drink beer night Friday night at Casa Beacon if you or anyone else is interested in swinging over. Cheers!