Brew day from Hell!!

    Well now that the holidays are over I finally had a night to brew. It's been over a month since my last brew day so I was jonesing. I have been brewing pretty much IPA's and Pales mostly for the past few months so I decided to brew a Stout. I'll post the recipe below.

   I knew that I needed some propane so I got my tank filled right after work, got home, fed the rugrats, put a movie on for them, and began to heat up my strike water on my stove. When I was ready to mash in I placed my paint strainer bag in the pot (I do BIAB) and I got a huge whiff of cologne. WTF!! well my brother in law lives in my basement and he is a very clean dude. He must have doused himself in cologne right by my brewing gear. So I had to dump that strike water and start over. I got my water back up to strike temp and mashed in. Overshot my temp by a few degrees but I just let it ride.

    After the hour long mash it was time to take things to the burner in the garage. I got my burner lit and went back inside to get the kettle. When I came back out my burner was shooting fireballs!!! When I went to turn down my regulator I realized it was frozen. "Well now what?" So I brought the kettle in and did my boil on the kitchen stove. Took for-ev-er.... Almost had a boil over and by the end of the boil there was condensation dripping down everything.

   Now I need to cool this damn thing. Well everything outside is frozen so I can't run a hose to my wort chiller. I need to get an adapter for my faucet so I can do that inside I guess. Every time I brew I think of something else I "need". I've tried to cool five gallons of wort in the sink and that was fun..... not!! I decided to try to cool it in the bathtub. It's a little sketchy carrying 5 gallons of near boiling wort up some stairs, but I got it there. It took more than an hour to get it cooled to pitching temp.

   Six hours later.... Its in the fermenter and I was pissed! I still hadn't  had a beer. This better be the best beer ever made.

   Here is my post brew brew. Epic's Double Skull Doppelbock. I didn't take any tasting notes, just wasn't feeling it. But I remember it being really sweet almost like a cola, but not in a bad way. I really enjoyed it.

 

Recipe specifics:

Style: American Stout
Batch size: 5.0 gal
Boil volume: 6.0 gal
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.012
Bitterness (IBU): 27.0
Color (SRM): 38.8
ABV: 4.9%

Grain/Sugars:
8.00 lb Two-row (US), 74.4%
1.00 lb Barley, Flaked, 9.3%
0.75 lb Roasted Barley, 7.0%
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (British), 4.7%
0.50 lb Crystal 70-80L (British), 4.7%

Hops:
0.75 oz Northern Brewer (AA 9.4%, Pellet) 60 min, 26.3 IBU
0.25 oz Northern Brewer (AA 9.4%, Pellet) 2 min, 0.7 IBU

American Ale yeast, 1.0 unit(s), Yeast  wyeast1056

 

I will post how this turns out. Cheers!

 

Chris

 

 

 

Intro

This is just a place for me to go on and on about beer. I've been brewing for about 2 years now. Started out with a Mr. Beer kit that my lovely wife got me for Valentines day. I'm sure she's kicking herself for getting me in to this obsession but she is very supportive of it.

I brewed extract batches and got comfortable with the whole process then made the switch to all grain as soon as my Mr Beer refills were gone. Never looked back. I brew BIAB(brew in a bag) style. I love the simplicity of it and my beers turn out great! Well most of the time...

Anywho.... I am looking forward to keeping this blog updated with home brew recipes, reviews, and other things I come across beer related, and maybe some unrelated nonsense.

Cheers!