chumprock
Well-Known Member
Saturday we had a private Belgian Beer tasting, with some amazing brews I've never tried, A "new" Orval, an "aged" Orval, and even a Westvleteren 8! I brought a bottle of Brewer's Art Resurrection, along with a couple bottles of my attempt at cloning the Res, and many of the tasters actually preferred mine!
After falling asleep good and drunk a little early on Saturday, I ended my 7 week brewing hiatus with a batch of my house porter. Everything went as planned except for missing my strike temp by a couple degrees from an absent-minded mistake, and then it was off to a big BBQ of Homebrewers.
So many amazing beers at that party. A Farmhouse Brown, and a buddy's Dunkel were my favorites, though I brought along some of my house ESB which received a number of positive comments.
Again, home druck early and right to bed.
Today I woke up bright and early for a big RIS brew. I'd never done a high-gravity beer before, but I got through it with only a few minor problems. I had a hell of a time sparging, and the 90 minute boil was a test of my patience. I missed my OG by a few points, but easily compensated with some DME to make up for my loss in efficiency.
Before I could even finish cleaning up, SWMBO was on me to help her make her bizzaro Horehoney Brown she's been toying with. I figured it being a partial (2gal) batch that I shouldn't have much trouble but boy was I wrong. Apparently making a small batch in a large cooler comes with its own set of problems and we had a majorly stuck sparge that I just couldn't figure out. We bit the bullet and just poured it off, flour and all, into the kettle through a strainer. We got all of the grain, but I'm betting it's going to be a pretty cloudy beer. Also, Horehound is f-ing bitter. I don't know what the hell got this idea into her pretty little head, but I'm really curious to see what happens.
So now I have 3 fermenters in the basement. The porter is chugging away, the RIS took off within 3 hours of pitching (thank you, big honkin 2.5L starter!), and the small 3 gal. carboy of Horehoney is patiently waiting to explode...
So now I'm sitting here, drinking a homebrew, and appreciating my labors on this day. Cheers!
Oh yeah, Thanks a ton to Ed & BMW for getting my order out so fast that it arrived on Saturday so this whole weekend was possible!
After falling asleep good and drunk a little early on Saturday, I ended my 7 week brewing hiatus with a batch of my house porter. Everything went as planned except for missing my strike temp by a couple degrees from an absent-minded mistake, and then it was off to a big BBQ of Homebrewers.
So many amazing beers at that party. A Farmhouse Brown, and a buddy's Dunkel were my favorites, though I brought along some of my house ESB which received a number of positive comments.
Again, home druck early and right to bed.
Today I woke up bright and early for a big RIS brew. I'd never done a high-gravity beer before, but I got through it with only a few minor problems. I had a hell of a time sparging, and the 90 minute boil was a test of my patience. I missed my OG by a few points, but easily compensated with some DME to make up for my loss in efficiency.
Before I could even finish cleaning up, SWMBO was on me to help her make her bizzaro Horehoney Brown she's been toying with. I figured it being a partial (2gal) batch that I shouldn't have much trouble but boy was I wrong. Apparently making a small batch in a large cooler comes with its own set of problems and we had a majorly stuck sparge that I just couldn't figure out. We bit the bullet and just poured it off, flour and all, into the kettle through a strainer. We got all of the grain, but I'm betting it's going to be a pretty cloudy beer. Also, Horehound is f-ing bitter. I don't know what the hell got this idea into her pretty little head, but I'm really curious to see what happens.
So now I have 3 fermenters in the basement. The porter is chugging away, the RIS took off within 3 hours of pitching (thank you, big honkin 2.5L starter!), and the small 3 gal. carboy of Horehoney is patiently waiting to explode...
So now I'm sitting here, drinking a homebrew, and appreciating my labors on this day. Cheers!
Oh yeah, Thanks a ton to Ed & BMW for getting my order out so fast that it arrived on Saturday so this whole weekend was possible!