I'm going to have a fun weekend!

Looks as though I'm going to have a great weekend. I have 3 brews lined up, but knowing me, I probably won't wait to start!



From left to right:
Edwort's Haus Ale
My Pumpkin Ale
My Blonde Ale

These are the first 2 recipes I've attempted to come up with, and in fact, these are the first all grain brews I'm doing, so I can't wait to get started!

Good luck - you'll love all grain!

That packaging looks awfully familiar...

gotta love the weekends scheduled around the brewdays! :rockin:
The SWBMO knows when a brewday is comming because I get this sparkle in my eye a couple days before hand!

As predicted, I can't wait until the weekend to start brewing, lol. I had to compromise and go grocery shopping here in a few minutes, but when I get back, its straight to brewing. I'm going to start off w/ the haus ale today, and maybe even get to the pumpkin ale to try and get it done by the end of October. Since I have to give myself something to do this weekend to get out of house work, the blonde ale will come this weekend. More pics to follow!

Check those Nottingham Yeast packets. Lot # 1081140118V, Expiration date 1/11 was recalled for poor/slow/absent fermentation

Jenks829 said:

Check those Nottingham Yeast packets. Lot # 1081140118V, Expiration date 1/11 was recalled for poor/slow/absent fermentation

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wa wa waaaa

Enjoy the AG. It's so much more fun.

I'm good on the lot number. Threw my strike water into the MLT to preheat it and found a small leak around the valve. All it took was a little twist and no more leak. I bought a new digital therm. today, calibrated it and found it was reading 209 in boiling water, but no big deal. I doughed in 30 mins ago, but didn't get any pics because I wanted to focus on the process. I got my math mixed up in the heat of the moment and calculated as if my therm. was reading 3 degrees over, instead of under. So, I doughed in at 155, which meant the temp was actually doughed in around 158. I'm not going to sweat it though, because what's done is done and its all a part of the learning process.

enjoy it!!!

Your wort could have been boiling at 209. Your thermometer could be just fine. 158 will give you more body, less fermentables. Which brew was it? Maybe a little sweet for the Ed's Haus. Probably won't hit FG you're expecting, but it will still be beer.

IrregularPulse said:

Your wort could have been boiling at 209. Your thermometer could be just fine. 158 will give you more body, less fermentables. Which brew was it? Maybe a little sweet for the Ed's Haus. Probably won't hit FG you're expecting, but it will still be beer.

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I calibrated it w/ boiling water before I even started to brew. It was Ed's Haus, but like you said, it will still be beer. I ended up w/ a SG of 1.062, so we'll see how it all plays out.

Enough teasing, here is some beer porn for everyone.
The mash after 60 mins

The set up

Pre-boil

Nice rolling boil

Right after pitching the yeast

Nice layer of krausen this morning


I ended up boiling off 1.5 gallons of the 6.5 of wort I collected, so I think I'm going to start collecting around 7 or 7.5 from now on.

golfguy819 said:

I bought a new digital therm. today, calibrated it and found it was reading 209 in boiling water, but no big deal. I doughed in 30 mins ago, but didn't get any pics because I wanted to focus on the process. I got my math mixed up in the heat of the moment and calculated as if my therm. was reading 3 degrees over, instead of under. So, I doughed in at 155, which meant the temp was actually doughed in around 158. I'm not going to sweat it though, because what's done is done and its all a part of the learning process.

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Just because your thermometer was off at boiling doesn't mean it will be off at 150F. That's the temp you want it to read good at for mashing. I check mine at 32f and 150f. I can tell when water is boiling.

wildwest450 said:

Just because your thermometer was off at boiling doesn't mean it will be off at 150F. That's the temp you want it to read good at for mashing. I check mine at 32f and 150f. I can tell when water is boiling.

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Good point...I was actually reviewing my notes from yesterday and I failed to mention that I was also using and old thermometer that I had used for every other brew and it was spot on with what the digital one said...just got there quicker then the digital for some reason.

Overall I'd say it was a pretty good brew day. The only thing that I can think of that I did wrong was not draw a sample of wort before the boil, but instead put my hydro into the bucket of wort that was 144 and got a pre-boil gravity of 1.034 at that temp., which would put it around 1.047 adjusted.

Also, I tried to do some quick math for the effiency using Palmer's guide in How To Brew, but wasn't sure if I should use the maximum ppg, or the typical, so I calculated for both. Using the maximum ppg, I came up with an efficiency of 93.2%. Now that certainly can't be right, can it?
I got 44.3 points for the 2-row, 10.8 for the Vienna, and 2.7 for the caramel 10.
Using the typical ppg (75%), I came up with 71% which to me sounds more right. I'm going to look into getting beersmith, but until then I'm stuck w/ crunching numbers the old fashion way. If anyone cares to chim in on the efficiency, please do so by all means.

Well, I had planned to do both the blonde and pumpkin ale's today, but after feeling like crap this morning, I don't have the strength to do 2 brews today. So, about 25 mins ago, I doughed in on the blonde. I figured it should be a pretty easy brew to do today, and will do the pumpkin probably on monday since tomorrow is football day. Since we're supposed to have some rain all this upcoming week, looks as though I'll be brewing in the garage which sucks because it's not attached to the house.

Are you fermenting at 56 deg or is that the outdoor temp?

Mountainbeers said:

Are you fermenting at 56 deg or is that the outdoor temp?

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That was the humidity level in the house. It was fermented between 64-70 degrees