Big_Eight's Brew Days

[Big_Eight]

Brewed a 5 us gallon/19 liter batch of Irish Dry Stout yesterday from a recipe I found in a 2016 issue of Brew Your Own Magazine.

Equipment wise I'm setup for batch sparging. I'm currently running 70-73% from an efficiency standpoint.

My brew day went well I started by adjusting my water with brewing salts and adding half campden tablet. I heated up my mash water and mashed in at 151°F in my 48 quart cooler mash tun for 60 minutes. I checked mash pH at 10 minutes in to the mash. I was expecting to hit a targeted pH of 5.4 and my pH meter confirmed this as I hit 5.4 spot on.

I then drained the tun after mashing was over and sparged with a little over 4 US Gallons of water.

I boiled for 60 minutes then cooled the wort down to 68°F with my immersion chiller.

Brew day went very well and the wort smelled divine. I hit my OG spot on at 1.050. Wort is now in my bucket fermenting away at 67°F in my basement.

The pic below is my buddy that wanted to drink a few pints and help with my brew day. This is him adding wort back in during the vorlauf process.

Cheers!

 

[Big_Eight]

I did a brew in January and have just gotten it bottled figured I'd post some pictures for everyone.

I brewed 19L of an Irish Red using US-05 yeast. Gravity before ferment/post boil came in at 1.053 and finished at 1.009.

Used Crystal hops for bittering at 60 minutes and Cascade with 30 minutes left in the boil.

Should be a great brew!

Mashing

Drained to kettle.

Getting my boil on!

The yeast are doing their job!

Bottling day!

Bottled!

 

[Big_Eight]

Brewed a recipe out of Ron Pattinson's 'The Homebrewer's Guide To Vintage Beer' book today. The recipe is 1910 Fullers's X Dark Mild.

I expect to finish around 1.015 (per FG in Ron's book) although the brewing software states 1.004.
(19L)
34.2% Mild Malt
31.7% 6-Row
7.3% Flaked Corn
26.8% Invert #3 (at flameout)

28.35g Fuggles @ 7.3% AA 60min
4.5g Cluster @ 7.5% AA 60 min

Mash at 152° (66.67°C) for 60 minutes
WYEAST 1968

Everything went to plan for the most part. I only had a couple issues I had to deal with. First I realized about 5 minutes in to the mash that I forgot to put in my flaked corn. I quickly added and mixed it in no harm no foul. With about 20 minutes left in the boil my propane tank ran dry luckily I had a spare on hand and quickly hooked it up and finished the boil.

I'm super excited to try this one when it's ready.

All the ingredients for the brew:

Mash tun after draining first runnings:

The boil:

Hit my OG spot on at 1.053 (also confirmed with an analog hydrometer)!

And finally in to the fermenter and fermentation chamber: