I brewed today!

Dave Y · Apr 19, 2025

Brew Cat said:
How do you like the Bark pilsner? I see Williams has it on sale

Barke is my go to Pils; I got a 55# bag late last year on sale and Munich, and M/O.

TerryDowning · Apr 22, 2025

I actually brewed a Cream Ale yesterday for an upcoming Club Competition (June). A 4-gallon batch is in the fermenter now at 10 PSI.

Herm brews · Apr 27, 2025

Alright, I got it done! My first brew day in almost 5 months went relatively smooth. The grains that I bought in late December 2024, double bagged in paper, somehow resisted any insect invasion, though they did taste less than fresh. For this batch, I decided to double mill the grains, yielding a good amount of flour. Another new process was keeping the kettle on our electric stove, with the element at its lowest setting. This proved to keep the mash temperature close to the target. After 60 minutes of mashing, I extended another 20 minutes and managed to extract a point above the recipe projection. With a higher volume of wort than usual, I switched on the fly from a 60 minute boil to 75, but keeping the hops additions in line with the 60 minute plan. For some reason, I elected to skip the usual bag for the hops, and ended up transferring quite a bit of hop sludge into the fermenter. In the end, I got a little more wort than projected, with an additional 2 points of specific gravity, and achieved a brewhouse efficiency of 81%. Now the wort is in the custody of an expired (12/2023) pack of US-05. We’ll see how it all works out.

In the interest of bread making, there are 2 baking trays full of spent grains drying in the oven. Time for a beer.