10 Gallon Brews!!!

Since the last post, we have made fine use out of our 15 gallon kettle.  The weather finally cooperated... We were able to get outside and use the propane burner with our 15 gal. kettle. It worked out extremely nice. We were able to boil the wort down to 10 gallons and not have to add the additional water to the carboys like we normally do with the 5 gal. kettle.

The first brew with that kettle was for AHA's big brew back in May. We beefed up their English Dark Mild recipe from a 5 gal. batch to a 10.5 gal. batch. Unfortunately, I was't able to attend the inaugural brew of that kettle, but here are some pictures the other guys took.

The other 10 gal. batch we brewed a couple weeks later was the Sierra Madre kit from Northern Brewer. We took the 5 gal. recipe and doubled it to 10 gal. The brew went great.  I did forget to connect the kettle screen to the ball valve coupling inside the boil kettle, but it worked out. Most of the trub stayed inside the bottom of the kettle once we got to the point of transferring the wort to the carboys. A few pics of the brew session below.

Chilling the wort before transferring it to the carboys in the background

Since we brewed 10 gallons we divided the wort between two carboys, 5 gallons each. We used the same yeast for both, so Brian figured we should use a couple ounces of Cascade hops to dry hop one of the secondary carboys.  Looking forward to see how all these beers turn out!

Another Double Brew Weekend

It was another big weekend brewing. Took me a week to post this, but we ended up brewing two, bottling two, and racking one (would have bottled three but someone forgot to dry hop the Son of Simcoe). We decided to push back bottling the Son of Simcoe a couple weeks and dry hopped it this weekend.  This also means that we will be bottling four beers on May 4 for AHA's Big Brew instead of the three we had planned.  No big deal though, just more bottles for Brian to sanitize.  By the way, he is the one who forgot to dry hop the Son of Simcoe beer so don't feel bad for him.

Finished racking the Dawson's Red Ale and getting ready to bottle the SS Minnow Mild

The two beers we brewed were two recipe kits from Northern Brewer.  We did their Cascade Mountain West Coast Imperial IPA kit and their T-Can & Bearcat's Wheaten Beatdown kit.  The imperial IPA kit is pretty self-explanatory from the title.  It is an imperial IPA that uses a good amount of Summit and Cascade hops (dry hopped with 4 oz. of Cascade hops!).  The Wheaten Beatdown on the other hand isn't as discernible from the title.  This beer can basically be described as a hopped up wheat beer.  I am personally excited to see how it turns out.

Now many of us have heard the saying April showers bring May flowers, but we haven't had many of those types of showers.  Rather we have had a few snow showers this April and apparently April snow showers bring yeast starters.  Don't believe me?  See the picture Brian took of his patio when it was snowing in the middle of April.

Yeast starters for the two beers brewed this past weekend 

Well at least the weather won't be this bad next weekend for Big Brew.  The forecast is in the 40's so it is not a whole lot better.  Too bad Big Brew couldn't have been this weekend with the upper 70's and lower 80's we had.  Regardless of temperature though it will be a great time and we are all looking forward to brewing!

SS Minnow Mild and Dawson's Multigrain Red Brew

We managed a double brew this past Friday evening.  We brewed a couple of 5 gal. extract kits from Northern Brewer.  The first kit brewed was the Dry Dock SS Minnow Mild kit.  The second batch brewed was Dawson's Multigrian Red kit.  Both beers have a relatively low original gravity so we decided to just add yeast nutrient ten minutes prior to the end of each boil.  This saved us (well really only Brian) the hassle of making a yeast starter for each beer.

Below is a picture of our brewing closet with these two recently brewed beers closest to the door.

6 carboys fermenting away

Our Big Brew Day Plans

It's about that time of year... AHA Big Brew!  This is a celebration of National Homebrew Day (May 7) and is observed the first Saturday in May every year.  Get together with family and friends and share the great fellowship of home brewing all day. 

We plan to spend the day brewing and grilling (weather cooperate please!).  The plan is to brew one of the three recipes released by AHA for Big Brew 2013.  We chose to brew the English Dark Mild Ale recipe.  Instead of doing a 5 gal. batch which the recipe calls for, we are going to do our first 10 gal. batch.  Well it will really be 10.5 gallons, 5 in our 6 gal. carboy and 5.5 in our 6.5 gal. carboy.   We decided we are going to use a different strain of yeast in each carboy.  In one, we are going to pitch the recommended London ESB yeast and in the second we are going to pitch West Yorkshire Ale yeast.

What are your plans for AHA's Big Brew?  If your not brewing, try to enjoy some homebrew or at least a craft beer.