Rainy Day Brews

The good people at Imperial Yeast have sent me a care package with 5 strains of yeast to test out in my upcoming brew days! This will be my first time brewing with Imperial Yeast and I am beyond excited to take these for a spin. I will be documenting each brew day here on the blog! The yeast strains I received are: Flagship A07 - Ale "A craft brewing standard, Flagship is a versatile strain loved for its extremely clean character. This strain performs well at standard ale temperatures, but can be used in the low 60s to produce exceptionally crisp ales. Flocculation is in the middle of the road and will typically require filtration or fining to achieve crystal clear beers. Temp: 60-72F, 16-22C // Flocculation: Med-low // Attenuation: 73-77%" - Imperial Yeast Darkness A10 - Ale "A beautiful strain for stout, porter, brown, and amber ales. Darkness produces a unique character that matches up perfectly with roasted and caramel malts. This strain is alcohol t

Stats: Brew Date: August 19, 2018 ABV: 4.7% IBU: 20.7 SRM: 4.0 Batch Size: 3 Gallon Grains: · 4lb 10oz Pale Malt(2-Row) · 9oz White Wheat Malt · 4oz Munich Malt Hops: · 0.35oz Perle (75min) (2.9AAU) · 0.3oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh (2min) (0.9AAU) Yeast: · Wyeast 1007 German Ale Misc: · 0.35tbs 5.2 Stabilizer  Brew Day Steps: Collect and heat 1.76 gal strike water Install mash tun screen Preheat mash tun with hot tap water Add stabilizer to mash water Mash IN! Smoosh dough balls and mix Mash at 153F for 45min Collect and heat 3.11 gallons of sparge water Iodine test to ensure conversion is complete Vorlauf until runnings are clear I use a strainer on my mash tun to ensure I don't disturb grain bed during Vorlauf  Collect first runnings in boil kettle  Mix in sparge water, seal mash tun for 10 min Co

One of my main concerns when I decided to take up homebrewing was space. I think this is a common concern among new homebrewers, especially those living in apartments with significant others who would find living in a homebrewery less than enjoyable. My goal is to dispel these concerns by going through my own brew setup. I'd like to begin by stating that I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with no balcony and I am able to quite comfortably brew 3 gallon, all-grain batches right inside my apartment. Granted my brew setup is not elaborate or fancy by any means, however I feel I have all of the essentials to make very good beer in my home. The one thing that I have in my apartment that allows me to brew easily is a gas stove(flame, not electric burner). This is pretty common in most houses across the US, however if you do not have a gas stove there are other options such as induction brewing which I will talk about in a upcoming post. One thing I have found to be especi

An essential piece of equipment for all-grain brewing is a mash tun. This is where your starchy malts get transformed into sweet, sweet, worty goodness. Surely I am not the only one to have my housemate walk past my computer and gasp, slack jawed at the scintillating image splayed shamefully across my computer screen in all its unbridled glory... a shiny, stainless steel mash tun of course. Who wouldn't want something like that to mash their grains in? While these are indeed a beautiful sight to behold, there are far more cost effective options that work just as well in my opinion. I have opted for the classic Home Depot cooler mash tun! This is a very inexpensive mash tun that cost less than $80 to build. I by no means came up with this idea, it is well documented all over the internet. My Mash Tun What you need: 5gal Home Depot Cooler ($22) Stainless Steel Ball Valve /w bulkhead 1/2" NPT ($27) 1/2" MPT x 3/8" Stainless Steel Barb ($6) 3/4" x

So you have decided to enter the wonderfully rewarding hobby of homebrewing, congratulations! You might be thinking to yourself: Where do I start? What do I need? How do I even beer? Making beer is actually very simple and only requires 4 ingredients: Sugars extracted from malted grain, water, hops and yeast. However, there are a few different ways you can obtain your sugar, its decision time, pour yourself a beer. Where do I start? The very first thing you need to decide is if you want to brew "All-Grain" or "Extract" batches of beer. It is all fine and good to drop names but what it actually means is how do you want to get your fermentable sugars? Option 1 - Extract Brewing: You can purchase sugars in liquid or powder form that has been pre-converted from starches in malted grain, this is called "malt extract". Malt Extract Option 2 - All Grain Brewing: You can steep crushed grains in water at a specific temperature for a specific amo