How was everyone's brew day?

How was everyone's brew day this weekend?

Mine went well for the most part. Efficiencies were as expected, though I didn't calculate my IBU's till the end of the boil like an idiot and I'm gonna be a little below what I had in mind (brewed an ESB). The alpha acid % was lower than I realized for the bittering addition. Still should be fine though. Hey, it's beer. :cross:

Other than that all went well! Though I'm ready to start cooling faster. I have an immersion chiller, but I want a bigger ID in the tubing and want to hook up a pump to ice water for 100 degrees and lower.

Anywho... how was everyone else's day?

Well, I'm glad you asked...The brew day actually went pretty well on Saturday. A few hickups...a tipped over starter, dropped about 1/2# of grain on the garage floor, but I was joined by some fellow HBTers and I did my first 2 batch brew day. Improved efficiency (about 78% on both). Didn't get to use my CFC, but the IC cooled down pretty fast.

Both batches (ESB and Stout) are bubbling along nicely.

Awesome!

How was the AG brewfest? I would have loved to have made it down! Alas, 4 feet of new snow was calling my name yesterday

Well, I didn't brew today. I haven't done any real brewing in a while. But I washed a case worth of bottles and took an inventory of my supplies. Does that count?
Was also going to rack some mead to tertiary this weekend, but I never got around to it. I guess there's always next weekend.

I brewed an extract hefeweizen yesterday, and it went well overall. I found out after I was done that SuperMoss is supposed to be made into a starter before adding to the boil, but I think it'll be fine. This was also the first time I've used a blowoff, this thing is going nuts! Huge CO2 burps every 30-45 seconds, foam streaming out of the hose - it's awesome!

Brew up a Mexi Lager. Brew day went very well as I'm finding my BC mill was worth every penny. I've hit roughly 85-89% efficiency with the crush and a new sparge arm design. Hit all my temps (step mash) and my water volumes. Now just chillin the wort down to 53 deg in the fermentation chamber and will pitch a healthy starter tomorrow.

PNWgirl said:

Awesome!

How was the AG brewfest? I would have loved to have made it down! Alas, 4 feet of new snow was calling my name yesterday

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The weather could have been a little nicer, but it was a fun gathering. Brewopia brought some great beers along to sample and some delicious kabobs.

I didn't get any pics, but I know the others did....

I didn't brew this weekend. I ran a half marathon in another state and hung out with running buddies all weekend.

I just got home tonight and transfered my Irish Stout from primary to secondary just now though. I think I'm only going to secondary it for a few days then put it in the fridge and hope the cooling drops anything out of suspension. Then I'll keg it and serve it up.

I attribute my skinniness to my crazy running. I feel perfectly fine about drinking whatever I want these days. For a little while I was gettin' pudgy.

drsocc wrote:
I attribute my skinniness to my crazy running. I feel perfectly fine about drinking whatever I want these days.

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As the Hashers would say, "A drinker with a running probem."

Oh, and to the OP. Good unplanned brewday yesterday. Made a 3 gallon batch using nothing but leftovers.
FREE BEER

But what is it?

Ingredient List
2.00 lbs Pale Malt (2 row)
1.60 lbs Flaked Wheat
1.40 lbs Munich Malt 10L
.50 lbs Crystal 60L
.50 lbs Victory Malt
.80 oz Hersbrucker Hops – Alpha 3.3% (60 min)
.50 oz Styrain Goldings Hops – Alpha 4.3% (30 min)
.50 oz Styrain Goldings Hops – Alpha 4.3% (5 min)
1.00 tsp Irish Moss
1.00 tbl pH Stabilizer
Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity (2nd Generation)

Brew day went smoothly -- nailed the OG on my Belgian Strong Ale (always gratifying), and had a healthy fermentation going by the evening. It is currently bubbling away (with a blowoff, so I get to listen to the "bloop bloop bloop" while I sleep).

Things I learned this batch:
1.) I hate pellet hops. Before, I have always had some whole leaf hops to act as a mini-filter. This time, I did all pellets, and the pellet gunk clogged up my strainer. Made for a battle to get the wort into the primary.

2.) This will be my first batch that I will secondary. I am fretting about keeping enough yeast to bottle, and am pondering keeping some of the yeast cake alive in the fridge for a the couple of weeks that it will be in the secondary.

3.) I should probably get a turkey fryer. I can boil 3 gallons tops on my range, which is getting tiresome.

4.) Similarly, time to convert the spare fridge into a climate-controlled environment. This fermentation is running warm, and I fear ending up with banana beer.

Brewed on Thursday. All went fine...overshot my vols a little bit, but had great efficiency so my SG was only a couple points low. Brewed up the Saison du Vieux Batard Saal, my first Saison. Beeropolis came by to buy my freezer from me and stuck around for the company, the beer and to see my AG process. Twas a good time!

brewed bm's centenial blonde again(with all cascade hops though).
i knew i was getting low on grain but didn't realize i only had 5.5 lbs of 2 row left.
so i added an old can of brewers best hopped canadian dry beer lme at 10 minutes to go in the boil.
this batch is more of a dirty blonde now but the wort smelled good and fermentation kicked in inside of 6 hours. time will tell if the extract was too old.
also bottled my chocolate porter, 1/2 with vanilla extract(from my mexico vacation) and 1/2 with hazelnut extract.

Brewed the AG version of Jamil's robust porter on Saturday night. Smooth and easy brewnight with no major snags. Hit my mash temp dead on. Efficiency was a bit low so I missed my OG by 4 points but nothing to worry about. I love my new refractometer. My new boil kettle has a higher evaporation rate than my older one; I'll account for that next time. Bubbling away nicely this morning at 66º.

was a brew weekend for me. saturday i bottled my double-hopped porter that had fermented for 13 days. and sunday brewed a 60minute IPA. so far, so good.......................

Hey everyone, I was lurking for a while over the summer but then, alas, let my brewing lapse.

Yesterday I did my third brew (not including a cider that went the way of apple wine at 10.5%) and stepped into the land of PMing with an altbier kit I picked up at my LHBS (next I'll start using recipes from other members, and then maybe try one of my own, but I wanted to take baby steps back into brewing). Instead of obsessing over details like I usually do I decided that I needed to just brew, dammit, because I've been going to 'next weekend' since January. This led to making silly mistakes like not covering the pot while I was mashing (I'll start using my cooler soon) and other problems with the heat. Luckily there were lots of helpful -- and patient -- people in IRC.

Somehow I managed to hit my OG, which I consider nothing short of miraculous. I'm sure there were other ways I could have screwed up, but instead I'll RDWHAHB and hope I come home to a bubbling fermenter

I brewed Sunday and it went well. Brewed a Schwarzbier and had crazy evaporation. Ended up about half a gallon short and a little higher OG than I wanted, so I added half a gallon of RO water in and it's starting to show signs of a krausen forming this morning.

TheOceaneer said:

Things I learned this batch:
1.) I hate pellet hops. Before, I have always had some whole leaf hops to act as a mini-filter. This time, I did all pellets, and the pellet gunk clogged up my strainer. Made for a battle to get the wort into the primary.

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My brew day also went very well and I concur about hating the pellet hops. I used Perle pellets in my Summer Citrus Wheat beer, and it was such a PITA to filter them out. I had to stop pouring the wort into the carboy 4 times to clean out the funnel filter. My brew before this one used only whole leaf hops, and I never had to empty my filter at all. Other than that, it was a great success and I learned a few more things about my brewing:

1. While it is possible to do 6.5 gallon boil in a 7.5 gallon kettle, it freaks me out to no end with boil over paranoia. Next time, I'll take out some boiling water before I add my extract and set it aside to add back in at the end.

2. Never use hop pellets again, or use a filter bag if necessary.

3. I need a larger strainer for my mini mash, the muslin bag stretched over a normal colander does not work well. Look into getting hardware for my 5 gallon cooler, and turning it into a small mash tun. (eg valve, filter, nuts, and washers).


All in all it was a great day...and my 3 week old pale ale is fully carbed and tasting GREAT!

I'm brewing right now, after a long day of work and chores, and it's going great - though so far it's involved drinking beer and watching the mash tun for about 20 minutes, so it's hard to see what could have gone wrong with that . Today's the inaugural brew with my new HBT-inspired hop sock ( https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=40738 ) - I'm making a Coniston Bluebird clone, as part of a far-sighted plan to make sure I have enough matured beer to see me through the summer.

Brewed an IPA. all went well until transfer to the fermenter. I had a hop bag plug the siphon tube at the bottom of my keggle. This has happened once before and I was able to shake it loose without opening the keggle. This time, however, the blockage wouldn't shake loose. Out of frustration, I ended up going elbow deep in cooled wort. I guess I'll find out what fermented arm tastes like. I pitched a little extra WLP004 in hopes of curbing the wild things.

Did my first ten gallon batch yesterday! An Oktoberfest - five gallons for my wedding in September and the other five to stash away at home for after the honeymoon!

Everything went well except one of the water hoses I use to connect to the IC developed some sort of permanent kink or clog. Shut the water off and still got a blast of cold water right to the eye trying to disconnect it! Fortunately, I found this out right as I was about to begin the boil. Hardware store is five mins. away, so it was a minor delay.

OG was estimated at 1.066 and I hit 1.060. Not bad for a first try at a 'big' boil. Only thing I need to address is my IC. It is a homemade 25' chiller and I really need a 50' one. Took too long to chill and it was ~40oF out at the time. Once summer comes, I'll really be up a creek if I don't get or make a new one..

Mine went relatively smoothly. Brewed BM's Centennial Blond recipe yesterday. For some reason, my pre-boil volume came out a quart low. I just dropped the boil time 15 minutes. Hit my normal efficiencies, OG was spot on and it was happily gurgling away this morning. I brewed this for a May BBQ for a group of BMC swillers, some of whom haven't learned to appreciate strongly hopped or full bodied beers.

Had a great brew day on Saturday. Brewed a 12 gallon batch of AG ordinary bitter. Hit all my temps nicely and as for target OG, I'm making it official on future beers. 92% efficiency. I've been putting in 90% and always seem to over-shoot my target OG by a point or 2... happened again on Saturday. Only hiccup was that I learned that Whirlfloc works ALOT better than regular Irish Moss. I had a lot of trub that helped the hops clog my keggle plumbing. But, I thought quickly and grabbed a turkey baster, sanitized it, and blew air through the tubing. That got it going again.

For yeast, I had a recently expired tube of WLP023. So, I made a 1qt starter last Monday and added a qt every night through Thursday. Friday night I put it in the fridge to settle out the yeast and Saturday I ended up with 1.5 qts of yeast slurry. Fermentation started in 1.5 hours!... Still going.