KMO brew day

We decided to make a bock for KMO's wedding. Recipe as follows:
1/2 lb crystal 80L
1/2 lb belgian caramunich
6 lbs amber malt
3 lbs amber dry malt
1 oz Hallertau hops (beginning boil)
1 0z Hallertau hops (45 mins into boil)
1 oz Mt Hood hops (finishing, 5 mins before end of boil)
irish moss
Wyeast German Ale #1007

Brix=16.5. Which gives us a SG of 1.068. On target.

We are also bottling KMO's raspberry amber tonight.
Raspberry amber update: brix = 9.0. This puts the ABV at 8.43%!!!! Damn. This is our record for oomph. KMO's wedding is gonna be a blast, fo sho.

Also transferred the KMO dunkel to secondary. Brix = 9.5. Not quite where we want it. We're going to check it again next week and may repitch if it doesn't go down some more. We're thinking this one must be a slow starter.

beer beer beer

Today we are brewing a batch of traditional dunkelweizen for KMO's wedding. We are also transferring the Bloodweizen batches to the secondary. We've decided to mix the Bloodweizens together for the secondary, and we will put it all into a 10 gallon bottling bucket in two weeks. Our goal is uniformity!
Recipe for the dunkel:

6 lbs wheat malt
1/2 lb pale malt (dry)
1 oz Saaz hops (boiling)
1 oz Hallertau hops (finishing)
Wyeast German Wheat #3333

New brix for the Bloodweizen: 5.4% This gives us an ABV of: 4.428% with a final gravity of 1.008.

Brix for the traditional Dunkel:12.4% which gives us an original gravity of 1.051. Totally in line with what we were hoping for. Booyah!!!

thats all for tonight :)

BIZ.IEST.DAY.

holy cow. We're transferring the raspberry to the secondary. We're bottling the ESB. We're brewing TWO BATCHES, thats TEN GALLONS people!!! of the Bloodweizen.

New raspberry brix: 9.5%. This puts the current ABV at 8.03%. This'll get you REAL wasted!! ;)

New ESB brix: 5.6%. This puts the ABV at 4.88%. Right on for an English beer.
We got 25 22's and 2 12's LOL we should've just gone for 26 22's but whatevs.

The brix's for the Bloodweizens: 10.5%. This gives us an specific gravity of 1.043.

There was really no time to blog. Busy night.

thats all for now :)

Brew day!!

Today we are starting the first batch for Monique and Kris's wedding!!!! (heretoblahforeblah referred to as KMO). We are making the raspberry amber, following the same recipe as the one from Monday, June 21 with one slight change. We are pretty sure we used 30L English Crystal that day. The store was out of 30L this afternoon so we got the 10L instead. We made our decision based on color. The original recipe called for more berries, which is what gave the beer its amazing color. We sacrificed color a tad in favor of flavor ( ;) ) when we decided to use 12oz fewer berries. The flavor is exactly what we want, but the color isn't as vibrant. Using the 10L vs. the 30L will make the color slightly lighter and always MORE perfect!! YOWZA!!!

anyways....

Next week will be busy. We are planning on bottling the ESB on monday and starting the 10 gallon batch of Bloodweizen on tuesday. This batch will be for Beer As Art on Sunday, October 24th. Again, if you want to go to this event, make sure one of us has your name on the list. There is NO ENTRY if your name is not on the list. Gotta keep it legal yo!

Our plan is to start the dunkel for KMO the following week, and their pale ale the week after. Whatever beer they decide on for the 4th will be after that. Yadda Yadda. Somewhere in the middle of all this we will be trying a different batch of ESB, with some variations in recipe, until we get it to Patrick's liking. I (erin) would really like to try making an IPA around that time. Sounds delish.

lalala

We are thinking ahead. Planning. Brain storming. Our goal is to start all grain batches January 1, 2011. Switching to all grain will save us money (in the long run) and we need to learn it anyway. The owner of our favorite Brewing supply shop (Cellar Home Brew in Seattle, WA) is going to hook it up :) We are very excited to start buying bags of grain from him. Our ultimate (2 year goal) is to be curled up in the fetal position on a bag of grain and asking ourselves what the fuck have we gotten our selves into??

Till next time, have a hoppy day :)



edit: brix for raspberry - 18.2. This puts our specific gravity at 1.075.