Yuma Brewers

Ok, we’ve been slacking on posting udates.  I’m back dating these posts to match when the events happened…but I’m going from memory.  So I’m hoping others will chime in with comments to fill in the gaps!

This is one of the reasons I brew each year…a chance to try the same basic recipie in different ways.  I’ve done a chocolate porter every year I brew and it’s usually very popular.  Last year it wasn’t.  So this year I’m determined to do it better than ever with our first partial mash.

The recipie was basicially Slanting Annies from Homebrewers companion, just the particulars of malts and yeast were customized.  The order from northern brewer was:

• 2lbs. Rahr 2-Row Pale
• 3lbs. Briess Caramel 60L
• 3lbs. Durst Wheat
• 1lb. Simpsons Black Malt
• 1lb. Simpsons Chocolate
• 3lb. Lt Munton’s DME
• 2oz. Willamette Leaf Hops
• Wyeast British Ale II

In addition J provided 2-16oz boxes of Hersheys unsweetened bakers chocolate I kept forgetting to buy.

Quantities used…well that was based off the book recipie weighed to the best of our abilities.  Which weren’t very good.  So exactly how much of anything got used is always going to be a bit of a mystery.

So we’ve got an uncertain new process we’re going to try and teach ourselves this week.  With a somewhat uncertain recipie.  With uncertain unproven new equipment put togther on the spot because our just completed new equipment was simply too large for the size of this batch!  Oh…and we got a late start.

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J and I got more work done on some equipment this weekend. Vessel #3 is almost ready - but we also decided that we need to find a SMALLER pot to use for this next brew as there aren’t enough grains to fill the bottom of one of the converted kegs. So we’ll be using one of the current pots with the new false bottom in it instead. We just need to make a custom drain tube for it. We also put this together:

Details on how how it went together below.

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Tonights Beer 1: Cream Ale (Northern Brewer kit)
Tonights Beer 2: Scottish 80/- (Northern Brewer kit)

Last week Nick wanted to do the Cream Ale this week. J and Jason both had ideas on heavier beers we wanted but my idea required a partial mash so we decided to give it an extra week to prepare equipment and do J’s 80/- wish this week.

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J and I both had the same realization on friday. Saturday I went over to Marks and started making it a reality. Nick came over to assist and we got quite a bit done. But there’s still more to do Sunday.

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