My First brew Diary

9/13
Started brewing
Ingredients:
2 Small pumpkins
True Brew Irish stout kit
spices as desired

Cubed and removed rinds, broiled for ~15 minutes.
removed from broiler, added to 1 1/2 gallons of cold water, brought to boil
remove from heat
add grains, seep for 20-30 minutes
remove grains, discard
bring to boil again, then remove from heat
add malt, stir, add malt extracts and hops
stir until disolved
add heat until it boils and foams
remove until foam subsides,
repeat last 2 steps until it doesnt foam when under heat

During final boiling, add:
2 tbsp of cinamon
dash of nutmeg
pinch of anise seed

added 3 gallons water to fermenter
pitched wort into fermenter, let cool
stir to aerate
added yeast ~ 11:30 PM
initial gravit 1.042

9/14
7 AM - 1 - 2 bubbles / second - IT’S ALIVE!!!!
Temp seemed a little high... around 72 degrees
5:30 PM - went to move it to its final brewing place and noticed that the bubbling had subsided considerably. I removed the air lock, covered hole w/ (clean) finger, and shook it up to aerate... hope this doesnt cause any problems
After that, I reapplied the airlock, and added a little more water to it. Will check on it later


9/15
Checked for fermentation, still bubbling, slowly, but bubbling.
Made the decision today to transport it to a secondary, I’ll take a look at where it stands fermentation wise and probably transport it to the secondary tomorrow, and bottle in a week to a week and a half.
Temperature today dropped slightly to ~68 degrees

9/16
temperature ~68 still
transferred to 2ndary.
Gravity: 1.020 on the money
taste: VERY hoppy, kinda disappointed, wasn’t expecting a hoppy taste out of an irish stout... but c’est la vie. Im thinking the pumpkin will basically be completely unnoticeable due to the hop level.
On the bright side... there was still a decent amount of fermentation going on, as I could see plenty of bubbles!

9/23
Bottled today
Final G: 1.017 -tasted pretty decent... Im happy!

3 weeks is waaaaay too long!

FrewBrew said:

9/13
3 weeks is waaaaay too long!

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Amen Brotha, sounds like you gotta phat brew!

That's cool....I keep kind of a spreadsheet for each batch with the same info. Helps if I ever have questions down the line. I'm not real good at following up on them though.

ORRELSE said:

That's cool....I keep kind of a spreadsheet for each batch with the same info. Helps if I ever have questions down the line. I'm not real good at following up on them though.

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I did that on my mac, which doesn't have Office on it... I find it easier to use that (it's a laptop, and I can set it down on the counter as Im working away and make notes if I need to, or pull up webpages when I get questions). Im just too lazy to transfer it over to anything else after its done.

ORRELSE said:

That's cool....I keep kind of a spreadsheet for each batch with the same info. Helps if I ever have questions down the line. I'm not real good at following up on them though.

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I'm going to make either an Access database or an online system. IfI can think of a good way to make and share one, I'll definitely give it out for free. Anyone else here have Access?

Good notes. That's what I like to see, especially the follow-up tasting notes and such.

Cheesefood said:

I'm going to make either an Access database or an online system. IfI can think of a good way to make and share one, I'll definitely give it out for free. Anyone else here have Access?

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Access = DEVIL!

SQL = waaaaaaay better!

homebrewer_99 said:

Good notes. That's what I like to see, especially the follow-up tasting notes and such.

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Thanks

FrewBrew said:

Access = DEVIL!

SQL = waaaaaaay better!

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Depends on what kind of SQL you're talking about. If you're talking SQL Server, then yes it's a lot more capable than Access (way more expensive too). If you're talking MySQL then no, not even close (not yet anyway).

Update: I tasted the beer tonight. Fully carbonated, hoppy, and quite tasty!

El Pistolero said:

Depends on what kind of SQL you're talking about. If you're talking SQL Server, then yes it's a lot more capable than Access (way more expensive too). If you're talking MySQL then no, not even close (not yet anyway).

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MySQL is free on most servers, but then you're assuming that this will be used for online purposes only. I know enough programming to build one either way, but I just think that Access is a little easier to design with since it's less module based and more GUI.

Now how's that for dropping some lingo?

I would say that the use of lingo was good, but I really think you should have used a few more acronyms.