I brewed today!

Brown Ale. By far, my favorite beer style for autumn.

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Altbier is in the fermenter and yeast is pitched. I hit my numbers, which was nice, but I've gone back to using my homemade spreadsheet for water volume calcs as opposed to the recipe calculator. It's just been too inconsistent.

So OG was on target and volumes were on target in a brand new kitchen. Having the sink across from the stove is definitely trickier. I also need to decide if I care about increasing my brewhouse efficiency (currently around 65%), or keep going as is for consistency and chase that dream another time. It's probably not affecting my overall cost very much (my LHBS has very affordable grain prices)
 
Sunfire96 said:
Altbier is in the fermenter and yeast is pitched. I hit my numbers, which was nice, but I've gone back to using my homemade spreadsheet for water volume calcs as opposed to the recipe calculator. It's just been too inconsistent.

So OG was on target and volumes were on target in a brand new kitchen. Having the sink across from the stove is definitely trickier. I also need to decide if I care about increasing my brewhouse efficiency (currently around 65%), or keep going as is for consistency and chase that dream another time. It's probably not affecting my overall cost very much (my LHBS has very affordable grain prices)
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Chase the dream another time and make life easy for yourself:)
 
Brewed the golden ale today. Ended up at 74% brewhouse efficiency. I'll assume it was an anomaly at this point, but it's nice to see the small changes I've made to my process may be working. Calculating my own water amounts has vastly improved my overall yield; I used to be short 0.25-0.5 gal per batch in the fermenter. And I've found a mill setting that seems to be a good balance between flour and flow rate.

I'm going to do my best to let these beers ferment low and slow as both are destined for competitions in October. Hopefully enough time to redo one if things going south.
 
Thinking about trying my hand at a PB Choc Milk Stout for winter time. Recipe I'm looking at takes two months so this would put me around beginning of December by the time I get time to brew. What's a good recommendation for yeast? I've seen English yeasts, and actually saw some specific recs for London Ale III. I've mainly brewed IPAs so far and have always used London Ale III for them and they came out great so I was surprised but when I went to the Wyeast website, they recommend it for a sweeter stout, so it makes sense.

Anyone have experience using it in a sweeter stout?
 
I haven't done them, but I like to ask questions when I go to the breweries. My wife really liked that style, and what I mostly heard is they are treated after fermentation. I like the Guinness strain when I do Porters, but hopefully other will chime in.
 
As far as flavoring, the recipe calls for using PB2, cocoa nibs, cocoa powder, and vanilla bean. All added at various points over a 6 weeks period. It calls for taking some wort and boiling it to add the PB2 and Cocoa Powder and different points and reintroducing it like a dry hop. Wondering if I would just pour wort out after fermentation or save wort pre-fermentation…..

Yeast is my biggest question right now at this point tho.
 
After almost a year and a half I finally have a new house, which includes a workshop with a designated area for brewing. Two inaugural batches over the last two days. I was also able add the last missing piece of my brewing puzzle - temp controlled fermentation.
 

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Semper Sitientem said:
After almost a year and a half I finally have a new house, which includes a workshop with a designated area for brewing. Two inaugural batches over the last two days. I was also able add the last missing piece of my brewing puzzle - temp controlled fermentation.
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Congratulations! It was a long road but now you’re there. Mostly I suppose.
 
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