Saturday, January 21, 2012

Mind-Bending week

This week was incredibly busy with work- having to work every night except Thursday (which means leave the house at 8:00 AM and return around 11:00 PM) Also, our friends arrived early Tuesday Morning (around 12:30 AM) to stay with us for the week.  This left very little time for brew/beer activities.

Since I really couldn't go out on Thursday, I invited 30 MORE people to the house for happy hour/brewing.

Had a fantastic time with all the homebrew guys.  If you brew and haven't had someone oer to brew with you, you are truly missing out.  Homebrewers are all pretty humble- everyone has had a n "off" beer and certainly, I haven't meet a brewer with the attitude tat they know everything.

This being the case, there is a lot of talk around the brew-stand about alternative ways of doing things.  It's really about sharing ideas, talking about different processes, and often recalling blunders and the lessons learned.

I can't recommend more strongly, joining a homebrew club and having a guest join you on brew day.

30 people may be a bit more than you would like.  It was really hectic.  I was brewing, getting food ready for the party, and hosting the party and of course, everyone brought some pretty awesome brews to share.  My boil went long because I had other things to do, I forgot the lavender (so I guess I'm going to add it in secondary...), didn't take any readings, cooling took a while, etc etc etc.  I brewed my Rosemary IPA (an extract brew) and a Cream Ale which will be joined by a tincture of lavender and some grilled lemons in about a week.

This leaves a hole in the fermenter as I realized a third batch would have been suicide.  I do have the grains for Portly Squirrel waiting for me, and for a Coffee Stout.

I used "Mild Malt" for my base malt in the cream ale.  It is supposed to give body to the beer, we'll see.

Cheers!

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