Bavarian Hefeweizen Brew Day Tomorrow!

Well things got kinda busy on Friday with the family and cleaning I didn't get around to brewing on Saturday.  But I do plan on firing up the propane burner tomorrow and brewing away.  I will be brewing up a Bavarian Hefeweizen kit from Northern Brewer.  One of my favorite styles of beer to drink.  Especially in the spring and summer.  Just so refreshing.  I have heard good things about this kit so I am really looking forward to it.

I did get to make my starter the other night and boy this yeast I am using (Wyeast 3068) is crazy.  Made a 1 liter starter on Wednesday evening and by Thursday morning the thing had a krausen on it 6 inches tall.  Came home after 10 hours at work and the thing had over flowed out of the 1/2 gallon growler.  I was a little pissed about losing some of the starter as I hate to see the yeast that I built up spilled onto my ledge in the basement but nothing I can really do about it now.  Stuck it into the fridge on Friday night to cold crash it in order to decant the starter liquid and checked on it this morning and didn't have the large yeast layer that I was hoping for.  I still think I will have enough yeast for this brew but was really expecting to have a 3 inch think yeast cake on the bottom.  I guess I will have to do with what I got.

Even though I didn't get to brew today I did get to bottle my Sierra Madre Pale Ale.  The thing smelled amazing coming out of the fermenter.  Didn't end up with 5 gallons as I had a good amount of trub at the bottom but that's okay.  I will bump up my batches to try and get 5.25 into the fermenter so I can hopefully end up with 5 gallons at bottling time.  I am excited that I am trying out the Coors Light home draft bottle for my homebrew.  Bottled 1.5 gallons in that and I will let it sit for three weeks before screwing on a CO2 cartridge and trying this bad boy out.  Will let you know how it turns out.

First All Grain Batch This Weekend

Well I have finally got everything I need to make the jump to all grain.  Plan on doing that this weekend with a buddy of mine.  Got the grains and yeast delivered today.  We are doing the Sierra Madre kit from Northern Brewer.  Supposed to be a clone of Sierra Nevada.  Really wanted to do an IPA, but figured I would do a Pale Ale as the wife would be more inclined to drink this over an IPA.  Hoping to start brewing around 10:00AM in order to try and be done in time to go to an anniversary party.  I guess if I don't get done in time I don't get to go.  Oh well.  Will let you know how the weekend goes.  Maybe even some pictures of how the day goes.

Bottled Spiced Pumpkin Ale

Well this past Sunday I ended up bottling my extract version of AHS Pumpkin Ale.  Everything went pretty smoothly except for the fact that while talking with the wife I forgot to sanitize 3 bottled.  Oh well I marked them and will see how they turned out.  Took a little taste test of the beer and it tasted pretty good seeing how it was flat and warm.  Can't wait to try it out here in a few weeks. 

Setting Up Blog

Well I figured I might as well set up a blog space for my little home brewery.  I doubt anyone will care, but it will be something for me to keep track of what I am doing and what I would like to do with my brewing.  If you are reading this, let me give you a little information about myself. 

I just recently within the last 6 months or so decided to get into home brewing.  I love drinking beer, so I figured to myself, why not learn how to make the stuff.  So I read as much information that I could on the subject (thanks John Palmer) and bought my equipment a few months ago.  Along with my brewing equipment I purchased my first beer kit through Northern Brewer.  The kit I went with was their Irish Red kit.  The reason I went with the Irish Red is because it was a fairly simple brew and would be something not to out of the ordinary that I could give my wife to drink and she would more then likely enjoy it.  Well the first brew went great.  Everything went off without a hitch and the beer tasted great.  Took it to Michigan with me and the friends I shared it with seemed to enjoy it.  Well at least that is what they said.  But as with most hobbies, after you do it once all you want to do is do it again.  Only bad thing is I had to wait quite a while before I was able to brew my next batches.