Let hear how your weekend brewing ended up?

I brewed a IIPA, with a IBU of 119!!!

Not one mistake (next time I'm hosed for saying that), I was aiming for 1.083 and I hit 1.084. I got 90.6% for Eff..

now the waiting....

So what did you brew and how'd it work out.

CR-

I brewed a Zombie Dust clone and a Black Rye IPA. Both went perfect.

You are getting some killer efficiency. Congrats!

Brewed a Mosiac hop IPA, missed my gravity by 2 points but I'm sure it will taste great. I get around 75% efficiency with my AG single vessel brew in a basket system.

5 gallon batch of chocolate mint imperial stout for a buddy of mine (he loves it, says it tastes like roasted thin mints).

OG: 1.092. WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast. Small krausen blowoff even when using Fermcap but not bad. It pushed about two tablespoons worth of krausen through the airlock and it's now all dried up on the bucket lid.

I also bottled my Belgian Dark Strong ale for a brewing competition next month and brought my Scorpion pepper IPA to a bottle tasting on Sunday (good reviews, not too hot).

Made a IIPA. Got the worst dough balls at mash in that I've ever had. Also had by far the SLOWEST sparge I've ever had. Grain bill was 45% MO, 45% Golden Promise, 5% C40 and 5% flaked oats. Don't know why the dough balls and sparge were much more of an issue this time that any of the other batches I've done. I've never used Golden Promise, but it didn't seem like it should cause a problem. Missed my OG by 1 point, despite all the issues.

Saturday: Mixed up a 1.5L DME starter for brewing an old expired Mexican Cerveza pre-hopped extract kit (details in another thread), then made a dozen agar slants for yeast culturing. Gotta wait a week to make sure nothing grows on them before using them to culture yeast. Also helped my wife bottle a batch of "Cosmopolitan" wine (kit), and started a new kit for her (some kind of Shiraz).

Sunday: Brewed the aforementioned Mexican Cerveza kit, then did a ton of cleaning (all the stuff from the starter, the brew, and the yeast slants, not to mention a couple empty Corny kegs and some empty beer bottles).

Brewed a pliny the elder clone. The only problem was straining all the hops out when transferring to the fermentor. I always just filter through a large paint straining bag, but it was basically just overloaded with hops and wasn't draining well at all.

Also, overshot my efficiency a bit, so I sparged a little extra and made a 2l starter alongside the main batch.

I woke up, hit the local bakery around 8:30 for a pastry and coffee then hit the brand new LHBS at exactly 9:00. It was their grand opening and I was their first ever customer The store is owned by three gentlemen and they have a good selection, for the most part, but have a few things to learn as none of them brew. For example they have a great selection of just about any specialty grain one could think of (45 varieties of grain or so) but I only spotted about four 10lb bags of base malt. I explained to them that the first few people that put together a 5 gallon recipe are going to clean them out of base malt, so they should order some big bags of US 2-row and pilsener malt ASAP.

They only had a Corona mill set up to crush the grain, so with a bit of tweaking to the crush and about 20 minutes of continual hand cranking we got my 10 lbs of Maris Otter bagged up. I picked up 3oz of Cascade, some accessories and took my picture with the owners (as I mentioned, I was their first ever customer).

Headed home, heated strike water, mashed in, went a little high but the mash settled at 153 so I closed up the cooler. Fly sparged, started the boil and added my hops in a nylon mesh bag clipped to the side of the pot (first time trying this). 60 min boil with 1 oz of Cascade each at 60, 30, 5. My ground water is only capable of taking the wort down to about 85 after a half hour of running the immersion chiller (and capturing the water for a load of laundry and sundry) so I put the kettle in the bathtub full of water and ice after that.

While the wort was chilling I prepared sugar, racked my last batch of IPA into the bottling bucket and bottled up that 5 gallons... Then cleaned out the fermenter, rehydrated my Nottingham yeast for the new batch and pitched. About 36 hours later I have a nice vigorous fermentation going in my fermentation chamber at 64*F. Oh, by the way I was shooting for 1.050 and hit 1.057 so I for one am a believer in the Corona mill!

All told it was a 10.5 hour brew day. I still have a lot of refining to do to my process. I spend way too much time hauling vessels of liquid around (mostly when capturing the chiller water). Tiring. Looking forward to building up a nice brew system with pumps in a year or two.

Wow so far so good for everyone, with the exception of some dough balls.

i like to hear when thing go well for others, cuz we all have been on the other side dealing with a bad brew day.

Do you Really want to know?

The hbt'ers who are on facebook with me had a lot of fun with my brew day from hell Saturday afternoon.

So I decided that while watching the Tiger's game Saturday afternoon I would brew a 2.5 gallon batch of the DFH Midas Touch Clone on here. "It's going to be an easy brew" I thought..."it's only a little extract" I thought..."Should be done in a couple hours" I thought....HAH!!!

First thing that happened is that there was some smutz in the drip pan beneath the element of my electric stove, and when I was heating the water up, it caught fire.

So I had to put it out, clean up the mess, unplug the smoke detector and open the windows.

Next I had an extract boil over when I hit hot break, because of course I wasn't paying attention.

Then when I added the honey (which I had softened in a pan of warm water on another burner on the stove, this is important) I was trying to rinse out the jar of the last little bitohoney, submerging it in the wort hold it by tongs, the car fell in, and fishing it out I splashed wort all over the stove.

THEN as the boil was going on I decided I needed to start dinner, so I preheated the oven, which on a 30 year old stove that had the big burner on, (and the burner that I left on from when I was dissolving the honey and had the boilover) caused the stove to blow, and die.

I had to put the kettle in the sink, and in my tiny kitchen had to pull the stove out, contortion it to turn it around in the kitchen aisle, tear the back off the stove, and resent it by flipping a breaker down by the terminal block. Then finegle the stove back into position. Plug it back in, and bring the wort back to a boil so I could continue.

THEN while I was waiting for it to come back to a boil, I decided to post my adventure on facebook (to which some of my brew buddies called me noob, and suggested I start a thread so some guy named Revvy could tell me I was Ok) I had YET ANOTHER boil over.

After that though I managed to finish ok and get the yeast pitched....5 hours after I started.

So it took me the same amount of time that it takes me to brew an all-grain batch.....to brew a "simple" batch of extract beer.

Brewed a mosaic hop and honey pale ale. Went off without a hitch and I hit all my numbers. Currently bubbling away in my new speidel tank!

lol !!! sorry Revvy

Brewed my "Galvanizer Wheat Pale Ale." It went well. I got a little higher efficiency than usual, and my sparge got stuck a little since I used some rye in the recipe this time, but nothing catastrophic. Although it was hot as hell all day. Like 85 degrees, or so.

Revvy, that's an instant Classic!

My brew day went off without a hitch. I brewed an El-Dorado IPA (first time trying this hop). Hit all my temps, no dough balls, my OG was 2 points too high though (ran crushed grain back through my mill to make sure of a good crush). The only down side was having to clean the stove afterward (I was out of propane for my outdoor burner).

Man, I feel like an a$$ complaining about dough balls after reading Revvy's story.

I brewed a doppelbock with 18 lbs of grain and a double decoction mash. I started sometime between 4 and 5PM and had everything cleaned and put away before 10PM. On top of that, the OG was 4 points over my target, but that's OK, because I boiled a little longer than the 60 minutes I had planned. I realized I was out of Whirfloc but found some irish moss mid boil. The wort cooled to 80F in less than 15 minutes, but then I let it cool overnight into the 50's in my compact fermenting fridge. I pitched the lager yeast in the morning and by 2PM, when I checked on it, the airlock was bubbling away.

So far so good. This batch will sit on some whisky barrel oak chips for a while once fermentation is complete.

I also tried one of these for the first time in my mash tun and it worked out great. My SS braided hose was so worn that it would collapse after stirring the mash, leading to stuck sparges.

I took a long weekend off with the intent to brew a couple of batches. Unfortunately I have yet to brew as the home improvement projects (kitchen and bath floors) are kicking my butt. Worst part is I can't even have a beer after finishing tonight due to work. Have a feeling the pipeline will thin out a bit as of 8 am.

I brewed 5 gallons of kolsch yesterday. Had to make a last min hop sub, I ended up overshooting my gravity by 14 points, and my daughter added a bottle cap to the fermenter as I was racking into it. So this could end up being an interesting beer.

Carros said:

my daughter added a bottle cap to the fermenter as I was racking into it. So this could end up being an interesting beer.

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It's added flavor... or can make for a interesting name of the brew.

I was too sick to make anything lovely to drink, hell i havent even had a beer in 8 days. so at least i didn't any problems to report. except my kegs are not getting empty.

Brewed a chocolate milk stout yesterday without a hitch. Even my battery for the drill which crushed grain was charged. Everything went well and even some snow (what happened to 57º Detroit) didn't bother me. It's bubbling away nicely with a starter of washed yeast. Second batch trying my newly acquired yeast harvesting skill. Cheers.

Brew day started late on sunday, didnt get started until 2:30. Hit strike temp quickly, got mashing and everything set nice. Got good efficiency for once and started to boil. Hops in fine at 60, 20,15,10,5 and then the kids insisted we go to the pool (mind you it was cloudy and 70). So flame out hops went in and decided to try a hop stand this time and chill when we got back.

Went to the pool, was way too cold but the kids had fun.

Chilled and into my bucket and pitched around 9pm. Bubbling happy this morning. Lets see how this Nelson/Mosaic pale turns out.

Bottled my hefe - my third batch ever. Tasted nice without carbonation, difficult to wait two weeks to get the final results. Cleaned and Sani'd the hefe carboy and racked my cider over. Cleaned and Sani'd the cider carboy which made it available to start my Kolsch, which I am excited about because I got the yeast from Midnight Brewery here near Richmond. Checked this morning and that thing is bubbling away already and I just brewed late last night.

So, currently I have about 3 cases of beer in bottle condition mode with 7 gallons of beer or cider following closely behind. Replied today to a CL post to get a couple of kegs so I can start force-carbing my brew rather than wait two weeks for conditioning.

My weekend brewing went literally as bad as it possibly could: I didn't brew anything!

I was supposed to order brewing supplies for the next three batches though...but I forgot/didn't have time, so now I have to do that tonight. I dry-hopped a huge IIPA on Thursday night too, but that doesn't count as a weekend in my book...plus...it was just a dry hop.

Glad others got some good brew time in, I thoroughly enjoy my weekend morning brew sessions. :rockin:

At the weekend I brewed up a batch of English bitter, a midwest kit which went pretty smoothly. I've realised I need a bigger kettle, my turkey fryer currently only makes for about 4.5 gallons into the fermenter after an hours boil, and going any further just results in boilovers, even with fermcap additions. Ended up with a decent OG though and pitched one smack pack of Northern Brewers NeoBritannia yeast, which is rocketing along. I'll have a go at top cropping it tonight, and repitch into my next brew or two.

Brewed up an IPA on Wednesday which didn't go so well. Aimed for an OG of 1.070, only got 1.052. Added some brown sugar to make up for it a bit. Still smells fantastic with a hop burst of falconers flight 7Cs though. Still fermenting away on US-05 as of last night, it almost exploded on day two but thankfully avoided that.

Worst brew day I've had in years... Decided to do a double brew day. 15 gallons of Blue Moon and 10 gallons of pale ale. So I missed my strike in temp by 10 degrees. So I cycled the wort through the HERMS in an attempt to bring the temp up. I went upstairs for a bit and came down 30 minutes later. Mash temp reading 141! Check out the sparge arm and the holes were clogged. So, never heated the mash up. Cleaned up the clog and raised the temp to correct temp for 15 minutes then mashed out. Ended up compacted the grainbed and had a stuck sparge.. even using rice hulls. Cleared that and drained off.All else went well and actually overshot my OG by a few points..

Second brew was a pale ale. Started out great, mash temps were perfect, sparged great, started the boil and added the first hop additions. Got to the second addition and decided to use my whole hops. This is where the problem starts. I didn't use a muslin bag, hop spider, or otherwise. Just tossed them in. Boil went great went to chill, nothing. Pump wasn't pumping an ounce. Did what I could to get it going, nothing. Take the pump apart and it's packed with whole hops, put it all back together and turn the pump on, starts making a God aweful grinding noise. I look and forgot to put the impeller pin back in. Take it all apart again. See that I cracked part of the impeller... So finally I said eff it, and did the no chill method.

Got the pump back together and cleaned up. Pitched yeast the next morning. Didn't quite look right but pitched anyways. Thinking this batch will be a dumper. Time will tell. The brew Gods were against me this weekend.

Shakespeare Stout Clone. I hit my numbers. Used new stainless hop basket. It worked beyond my expectations. Used submersible pump in ice water to recirculate. Through wort chiller. I ran out of ice and could only get down to 72. I pitched 3.5l of starter with bottle-harvested pac man. It was at 69 degrees and chugging away into blow-off container this morning.

Brewed a Heady Topper Clone(also ~120 IBU's) thurs, and brewed a berliner weiss on Sunday

"Brewed" a ryepa. Doubled the rye, used tons of rice hulls, everything got REALLY gummy. Way stuck sparge, had to empty both my maxxed out mt's and kind of mini batch sparge. Took forever. Then the filter on my bk got slow and gooey, took forever to pump through the chiller. Got flustered forgot to pitch yeast till hours later. Also the sewer backed up at a rental, i had to pretend i worked at willy wonka's chocolate factory.

I brewed my coconut black ipa. Came out right about 75% efficient. I'll call that sucessful brewday. It had actually already started fermenting about 5 hours after pitching.

Brewed the CYBI clone recipe for Wells Bombardier ESB.

Flawless brew day. This was my second RO water + salts beer, adjusted to get close to the water profile they mention on the CYBI episode, and that worked great too. Hit my step-mash temps, hit my preboil SG, hit my OG nearly perfectly: 1.051 when I was aiming for 1.050. :rockin:

Poured through a paint strainer bag to strain out the hops and break, which gave me great aeration. Sprinkled in dry S-04 (couldn't get the Wells yeast this time of year), and it was bubbling like crazy this morning. Wish they all went so well!

-Rich

Well, nothing fantastic, but better than some folks it seems.
Brewed 5gal of a Yuengling inspired Lager. No major catastrophes or problems. Actually seemed to be my smoothest brewday yet (this makes up for the boilover in the flask while making the yeast starter on Thursday ) Racked some of the starter into a vial to store for next time (1st attempt at culturing yeast for storage).

And I managed to have a flawless brew day while drinking the IIPA made with 100% homegrown hops (dislocated shoulder from patting myself on the back).

The plan was to brew an ESB but somehow the wife convinced me to bring her to a vegan food festival. I was a stranger in a stange land.

diodeart said:

"Brewed" a ryepa. Doubled the rye, used tons of rice hulls, everything got REALLY gummy. Way stuck sparge, had to empty both my maxxed out mt's and kind of mini batch sparge. Took forever. Then the filter on my bk got slow and gooey, took forever to pump through the chiller. Got flustered forgot to pitch yeast till hours later. Also the sewer backed up at a rental, i had to pretend i worked at willy wonka's chocolate factory.

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I also drank my yeast starter. It was in the fridge in a big clear beer bottle, the yeast was collecting on the bottom. Looked like a home brew. Wondered why it was so flat.

Got all but 2 stands finished for my 6 110g fermenters. Lots of drilling 1/4" plate steel makes ya sore. If only I had a real drill press.

I messed up, I started the brew day cleaning the boil over from my last brew (stout), then ground the grains for the day. By this time It's 2pm, I'm moving slow. I do my first ten gallons by 7pm, then take a break and let the BK cool off before I clean it out for the next batch. Took a break for an hr, then walk back and turn on the pump without cleaning the BK, so now my next brew has 2x hot break/hops and stuff, oops. The BK drained SLOW into the plate chiller. Then after the 2nd 10 gallons I pitched the yeast and my stir bar into the carboy, Oops! Some how I boiled off an extra gallon, so one carboy looks (low) all jack-up. I may not do double brew days any more. On the up side, this was the first brew I took notes on. I still have to clean more stuff.

julioardz said:

I also tried one of these for the first time in my mash tun and it worked out great. My SS braided hose was so worn that it would collapse after stirring the mash, leading to stuck sparges.

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Good to know just put one in my tun, round cooler had to curl up the end about 1/2" for it to fit.

After reading Revvy's post having it rain/drizzle on an off for the last half hour of my boil doesn't seem so bad!!!

Brewed my second lager, a maibock, and pitched it onto the cake from my munich helles I brewed 2 weeks ago. It's my first time pitching onto another yeast cake. The sparge was super sticky, and for some reason my boil off was way high, and I overshot my gravity about 3 points, due to an 85% mash efficiency. So the overboil was a bit annoying....and it took an hour to chill to 47....

But when I racked my helles, it tasted freakin fantastic at only 2 weeks. I used the white labs 860 munich helles platinum series. It gave me 82% attenuation, can't wait to try the helles (after 4 weeks lagering) and the maibock (in about 3 months). So overall, it went well.

Brewed a blonde and a smoke IPA at the same time. I had been paying so close attention to the IPA that I didn't really notice that my blonde had been steady at about 147 for 40 minutes. I kept adding water, but then I'd have to adjust the Ph and I couldn't get the damn thing to get any higher than 147. I mashed for like 100 minutes, then focused my attention back to the Smoke IPA. When I started boiling the two, I underboiled the blonde and as I cooled it with my backup chiller, the darn thing broke and was slowly spilling hose water into my beer. I chucked the chiller and had to go ice bath + stirring like a madman. The smoke was completely fine, but the blonde came in too low in OG (1.042 as opposed to 1.047). I'm not convinced the starch converted fully, but at least now it's furiously bubbling in my fermentation closet. Who knows how that'll turn out. Bleh. So much for multi-tasking. I had made two batches at once before, but never without help. I'm getting up to try it again right now. Haha. Wish me luck.

Brewed a IIPA with an IBU of 118 and got 90% efficiency when I was planning on 70%...should be fun when it comes time to drink.

Also brewed my car bomb stout, only got 60% efficiency on that one for some reason.

Smoked some ribs while I was at it, all in all a great saturday afternoon.