Woot! It finally happened. I brewed beer again for the first time in over a decade last weekend! And man, I am glad to be back brewing. It was a PERFECT day for brewing outside in Colorado. For an early January day the conditions were prime. It started out just above freezing but it was sunny and hardly any wind at all. I set up my homebrew gear, sanitized my equipment and set the water to boil.
For my first brew, I decided to go with a robust porter recipe that I found in Brew Your Own magazine but decided to deviate a bit just to mix things up a bit. Here's the recipe I used:
7.1 lbs Golden Light LME
8 oz Caramel Malt 60L
4 oz Extra Special Malt
4 oz Dark Chocolate Malt
1 tsp Irish Moss
1.25 oz Goldings Pelletized Hops - 60 min.
0.50 oz Goldings Pelletized Hops - 5 min.
1 vial White Labs Bedford British Ale yeast
I steeped the cracked Caramel, ESM and Dark Choc malt in a grain bag in 160 degree water for 20 minutes. Then I brought up the wort to a boil and added the 7.1 pounds of malt extract and threw in the 1.25 oz of Goldings hops for a 60 minute boil. I substituted dry malt extract in place of liquid malt extract and decided to go with a lighter base malt just to mix things up a bit. The original recipe called for Fuggles hops for 60 minutes but the brewshop was out. So I substituted Goldings for that part.
After 45 minutes of boiling, I added 1 teaspoon of Irish Moss to help settle out the wort later. With 5 minutes left in the boil, I added the last of the Goldings hops, 0.5 oz, for aroma. Mmmmm. This recipe was smelling good.
Once the boil was done, I dropped in my wort chiller into the kettle and let some nice 40 degree water cool down the wort. It took roughly 25 minutes to cool down to a 70 degree pitching temperature.
Once cooled I drained the brew into my plastic fermenter tub. I took the wort inside at that point and added my yeast starter that I had made a few days earlier. I wanted to use a starter to help ensure a good active fermentation in just a few hours. Once pitched, I closed up the fermenter and shook it up vigourously for a few minutes to help aerate the wort.
After about 6 hours, the airlock started coming alive with bubbles. The yeast was feasting on the sugars with a passion!
The following is a 9:30 minute video highlighting my inaugural brew day for 2009. 
It's good to be back brewing again! I can't wait to bottle this one up and carbonate it. More on this batch later next week when I plan to rack the beer into a secondary.
Continue reading: Pitching the yeast into your homebrew
Related articles:
- Creating a yeast starter.
- Bottle washing day.
- Testing the Blichmann Boilermaker kettle.
- Putting together the home brewery Part I.
This article came from FermentedlyChallenged.com
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Monday, January 12, 2009
First batch of homebrew for the year
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Why bother with Irish Moss in a Porter, not like you'll see through it anyway. Besides careful racking and patience will get you the same results. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThomas - I always use Irish Moss to help clarify my beer, dark or not. Even BYO Magazine recommended it for this recipe. Irish moss contains Vitamin A, D, E, F and K - so it can't hurt. Irish moss clearing in dark beers help give that ruby color on the edges when held up to the light. If you ever are considering entering a dark beer into a competition, the better the clarity the better.
ReplyDeleteGood advice on the Irish moss and great video. Watching you do this gives me tons of tips for my next batch, being a new brewer. Can't wait for the next video! How do you keep from the boil over with just that setup - just stir a lot?
ReplyDeleteOne sure way to avoid most boilovers is to get a brew pot that's plenty big. I had just 6 gallons of water in my 15 gallon pot and typically if you keep your batch size to 1/2 the capacity or less then boilovers aren't a problem. So if you get at least a 10 gallon brew pot for a 5 gallon batch you'll be fine. Still, it's a good idea to occasionally stir, but not too vigorously.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips... my buddy and I just started making some beer!
ReplyDeleteDave -- why did you wait so long to brew again? Just life, or is there a story there?
ReplyDeletebeercritic - back when I stopped brewing I started getting too busy with the family. I have 3 kids and things just got too hectic. I ended up running out of room to store all my old equipment and sold it off. Now, 2 of the 3 kids are out of the house and my schedule is a little more flexible.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, Dave. Welcome back to the club! I'm anxious to hear how this one turns out. I still have kettle envy ... ...
ReplyDeleteThx Shawn. Glad to be back brewing again. I look forward to participating in the Aleuminati's next collaboration project.
ReplyDeleteGood on ya for having a fire extinguisher lurking in the background!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see others brewing outside in the winter. We brewed an oatmeal stout right after Christmas and our whole production is outside! It was 8 degrees on the bank sign when I drove to meet the guys that I brew with. Thankfully they have a sweet setup with a finished basement and accessible shower for rinsing and getting water. Hopefully I can document later once I get the blog up and going. Not sure how it is in Colorado, but I was surprised the neighbors didn't call the cops on us. Probably thought we were making meth with all the pots/steam/and stainless equipment.
ReplyDeleteIt's always a good idea whenever using fire to keep a fire extinguisher handy. You never know what may happen.
ReplyDelete