First Mid-Week Brew

Well, my weekends have been full for a while and it seems to always keep me from brewing. I finally decided to give it a go for my first mid-week brew. Heating the strike water as we speak and it's a wonderful 55 degrees outside which should make chilling go much much quicker. Lets see if I can beat my 4 hour usual time.

Wish me luck!

4 hours is your usual? Deezang! That's efficiency! You are mashing, right?

I love mid-week brewing!

Good luck!

Mashed in, hit my temp dead on. Count down to sparge in 40 minutes.

Evan! said:

4 hours is your usual? Deezang! That's efficiency! You are mashing, right?

I love mid-week brewing!

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Yup yup. I feel like this one is going to go smooth.

Strike water is heated, just waiting for my mash to finish. I busted out the hops and they smell wonderful. It's going to be a simco / warrior IPA and by the smell of the hops I think it's going to be delicious. Now time to sanitize while I'm waiting for the mash to finish. I won't have time during the boil cause I'm going to continuously add the ounce of warrior and ounce of simco blend.

The Recipe:


Type: All Grain
Date: 9/11/2007
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Brewer: Paul
Boil Size: 6.00 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: Brew Pot (6+gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (5 Gal)
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0
Taste Notes: Mash at 150 for 60 mins

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 75.0 %
2.00 lb Special Roast (50.0 SRM) Grain 16.7 %
1.00 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 8.3 %

0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (55 min) Hops 8.4 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (50 min) Hops 8.2 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (45 min) Hops 7.9 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (40 min) Hops 7.6 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (35 min) Hops 7.1 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (30 min) Hops 6.6 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (25 min) Hops 6.0 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (20 min) Hops 5.2 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (15 min) Hops 4.3 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (10 min) Hops 3.1 IBU
0.20 oz Warrior / Simco [13.00%] (5 min) Hops 1.7 IBU


Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.065 SG

Est Final Gravity: 1.017
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.3 %
Bitterness: 66.3 IBU
Est Color: 13.2 SRM

Mid week brewing is great, makes me feel like it's the weekend, then the next weekend gets there even quicker!

Getting ready to sparge finally. As a side note, my beautiful kegging gear arrived today. It's like brewing Christmas.

*EDIT* Draining my sparge now. Looks like I'm going to hit the same 4 hour brew I always do. Unless my cooling is drastically faster than normal. I always forget how long it takes to mash out and sparge out. =/

Well, the brew went fine and dandy and was a good time. Finished up quite a while ago, but had to visit with my sister / her husband and eat some dinner.

I'll be interested to see how this sucker turns out. I actually noticed there is very little hop aroma in the pre-fermented wort. I plan on dry hopping to kick up the aroma, but also wonder if some more of the hop character will begin to show as the sugars ferment out.

Also, the mid-week brew was quite a bit of fun. Definitely a switch from the old Saturday morning brew and although it ate up my evening it was well worth it!

Just took a gravity reading... I hit 1.070 and was shooting for 1.065 with 75% efficiency... I hit my volume spot on... So I guess my efficiency was more like 80%! Wowie! I'm pretty darn pleased with that given it was only my third all grain! =D Maybe brewing in the middle of the week is good luck!

Wow, this is the first time I haven't had fermentation over night. I guess that's what I get for doing an ice batch even though it's freaking 44 degree's outside and we don't have the air on. I was just paranoid because it seems like every time I do a brew, I have it at the right then and then fermentation heat sends it up to around 74. I don't want any funky esters fighting the hop nose, so I guess I'll just take it easy and cold for now and hope for the best when I get home from work.