bugnout
Apprentice
Hello all,
My son and I have been brewing now about twice a month since the start of the year. I just rediscovered my love for brewing. I did some extract brewing about 10-15 years ago. We jumped in just before Christmas with a very expensive extract based English ale. It was enough of a success that I decided to try all grain. Did a little reading and built myself a basic brewery with a 10 gallon water cooler mash/Lauder tun, a 10 gallon brewing pot. we have a couple of 4 gallon pots from the extract brewing that we use for liquor tanks, a copper wort cooler and are fermenting in 5 and 6 gallon glass carboys. We are bottling all the beer.
We are fly sparging (I think that is what its called) Adding water to the cooler as we drain the wort out to the brew pot. after 5 batches we are getting better, our last mash efficiency was up to 86% on a simple cream ale recipe.
First couple of batches were AIH clone recipes, Moose Drool, Fat Tire and Blue Moon. All turned out fantastic. My family and neighbors all thought they were close matches, except for the Blue Moon which we all think is better than the original. We have moved on to our own recipes, first a double chocolate stout and an American cream ale.
We have learned a few things along the way. I think we laudered the Moose drool too quickly, from mash to pot in about 25 minutes and we didn't vorlaf at all. Since then we have mastered sparging and laudering a gallon every 10 minutes. We experienced one stuck sparge when we let the Blue Moon bed get too compact (wheat) but were able to restart it by backflowing wort for 30 seconds.
We've had one stuck fermentation when the double chocolate stout, which had vigorous fermentation for the first few days, just stopped. We were using a blow off hose and had more than a quart blow out, so I suspect that there wasn't much yeast left in the carboy when we put the airlock on. after two weeks with no progress, we re pitched the yeast to finish.
We started creating our own recipes a month ago so it was time to invest in Beersmith. We hope to contribute to this forum and looking for a local brew club to join.
Cheers
My son and I have been brewing now about twice a month since the start of the year. I just rediscovered my love for brewing. I did some extract brewing about 10-15 years ago. We jumped in just before Christmas with a very expensive extract based English ale. It was enough of a success that I decided to try all grain. Did a little reading and built myself a basic brewery with a 10 gallon water cooler mash/Lauder tun, a 10 gallon brewing pot. we have a couple of 4 gallon pots from the extract brewing that we use for liquor tanks, a copper wort cooler and are fermenting in 5 and 6 gallon glass carboys. We are bottling all the beer.
We are fly sparging (I think that is what its called) Adding water to the cooler as we drain the wort out to the brew pot. after 5 batches we are getting better, our last mash efficiency was up to 86% on a simple cream ale recipe.
First couple of batches were AIH clone recipes, Moose Drool, Fat Tire and Blue Moon. All turned out fantastic. My family and neighbors all thought they were close matches, except for the Blue Moon which we all think is better than the original. We have moved on to our own recipes, first a double chocolate stout and an American cream ale.
We have learned a few things along the way. I think we laudered the Moose drool too quickly, from mash to pot in about 25 minutes and we didn't vorlaf at all. Since then we have mastered sparging and laudering a gallon every 10 minutes. We experienced one stuck sparge when we let the Blue Moon bed get too compact (wheat) but were able to restart it by backflowing wort for 30 seconds.
We've had one stuck fermentation when the double chocolate stout, which had vigorous fermentation for the first few days, just stopped. We were using a blow off hose and had more than a quart blow out, so I suspect that there wasn't much yeast left in the carboy when we put the airlock on. after two weeks with no progress, we re pitched the yeast to finish.
We started creating our own recipes a month ago so it was time to invest in Beersmith. We hope to contribute to this forum and looking for a local brew club to join.
Cheers
