Two Gallons at a Time

Follow me on my journey of brewing beer, (mostly) two gallons at a time.

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A photographic journey of my Chocolate Stout (#7) brewed this past weekend.

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Brew #7 - Hershey's Chocolate Stout

I found a recipe online for a Mint Chocolate Stout and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to try it out. My palate has been opening up to Stouts and Porters lately and I have always been a huge fan of mint chocolate chip so I figured why not. A week ago I decided that I was going to leave the mint out for this first brew since that feels like a very winter drink to me, but if this comes out as good as I hope it does, then I will brew again in the winter with the mint added.

This is another BIAB recipe with a 5-gallon paint strainer bag from Lowe's which makes things much easier for me as I am just starting off with all-grain recipes. I posted the recipe below in case someone wanted to scale it or brew it by buying grains at the LHBS, but the brewing process went pretty smoothly.

Dates Brew Date: 03/10/2013 Bottle Date: TBD

Recipe Sepcifiations Estimated OG: 1.060 Estimated FG: 1.016 Estimated Color: 37 SRM Estimated IBU: 28 IBU Estimated ABV: 5.8% Boil Time: 60 minutes Batch Size: 2.4 Gallon

Grain Bill 4 lbs - American 2 Row 4 oz - Carafa III 4 oz - Chocolate Malt 4 oz - Crystal 40L 8 oz - Flaked Barley

Hops 1 oz - UK Kent Goldings @ 60min

Yeast 3/4 Vile - White Labs WLP004

Others 3 oz - Unsweetened Cocoa Powder @ 10min 6 oz - Lactose (Unfermentable Sugar) @ 10min

Recipe Notes Mash: 3.75 Gallons of Water @ 156°

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Helped A Friend with 1-Gallon Batch (#2)

A friend of mine started brewing a few weeks after me by buying himself the Brooklyn Brew Shop homebrew kit. It's a really nice kit for the price - includes an all-grain recipe, a 1-gallon fermenting jug, an airlock, a brewing thermometer and some hoses for siphoning. For the price and the introduction into brewing, you really can't beat it. It's been a while since he brewed the first kit (Everyday IPA) and our Whole Foods started carrying their kits, so we picked up their Chocolate Maple Porter this weekend and got to brewing.

I posted the recipe below in case someone wanted to scale it or brew it by buying grains at the LHBS, but the brewing process went pretty smoothly. We used a paint strainer bag (with mash & sparge) and it made things SO much easier than the IPA we did with cheese cloth and a rubber band. We fell a tiny bit short of 1 gallon of wort (pretty much a cup short) so we topped it off with some water and started fermenting last night. Going to give it two-three weeks in the 1 gallon jug then move it to bottling. Wort tasted great too - definitely some great maple flavor in there. Really excited to see how this turns out once the yeast do their job.

Dates Brew Date: 03/03/2013 Bottle Date: TBD

Recipe Sepcifiations Estimated OG: 1.056 Estimated FG: 1.016 Estimated Color: 65 SRM Estimated IBU: 26.8 IBU Estimated ABV: 5.3% Boil Time: 60 minutes Batch Size: 1 Gallon

Grain Bill 1.4 lbs - American 2 Row 6 oz - Chocolate Malt 3 oz - Black (Patent) Malt 3 oz - Crystal 20L

Hops 0.3 oz - Fuggles @ 60min 0.1 oz - Fuggles @ 15min

Yeast 1 Packet - Brooklyn Brew Shop Yeast

Others 6 oz - Maple Syrup @ Flameout

Recipe Notes Mash: 2 Qts of Water @ 154° Sparge: 4 Qts of Water @ 170°

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One of the best charts out there for the beginning home brewer. Explains what adding hops at different times of the boil will do to your beer. Basically breaks down to the following: Early additions = bitterness About 20 minutes = flavor Less than 10 minutes = aroma

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Brew #6 - Cascading Falls

This recipe is based on what I think is a very basic pale ale with a simple grain bill - this allows for the hop to be changed and to see the affect it has on the beer.

Recipe Sepcifiations Estimated OG: 1.051 Estimated Color: 7 SRM Estimated IBU: 38.9 IBU Boil Time: 60 minutes Batch Size: 2.5 Gallons

Grain Bill 4.5 lb - Two Row Malt 4 oz - Carapils 4 oz - Caramel 60L

Hops 0.5 oz Cascade at 60 minutes 0.5 oz Cascade at 20 minutes 0.5 oz Cascade at 5 minutes

Yeast Safale S-05 Dry Ale Yeast

Recipe Notes I decided the first go at the concept to do a no-sparge BIAB method, so these are my calculations for water volume in the pot.

Final Volume: 2.5 Gallons Evaporation Rate: +1 gallon / hour Absorption Rate: 0.125 gallons / lb Total Water: 4.125 Gallons (16.5 Quarts)

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Brew #5 - You're My Boy Blue

This is intended to be a clone (or at least in the same style of) Blue Moon, which was the first beer I ever liked. My taste has definitely evolved from this first beer, but I wanted to try some new extract brews and this was pretty obvious choice.

Dates Brew Date: 01/29/2013 Bottle Date: 02/18/2013

Recipe Sepcifiations Estimated OG: 1.042 Estimated Color: 3° SRM Estimated IBU: 24.5 IBU Estimated ABV: 4.1% Boil Time: 45 minutes Batch Size: 2.13 Gallons

Grain Bill 2 lbs - Wheat DME

Hops 0.5 oz Czech Saaz at 45 minutes 0.1 oz Czech Saaz at 10 minutes

Yeast Safale S-05 Dry Ale Yeast

Others 0.5 oz - Sweet Orange Peel (10 minute boil) 0.25 oz - Crushed Coriander Seed (10 minute boil)

Recipe Notes I am going to do a partial boil since I can't fit that much water / DME into any pot I have in my apartment. I started with 1.5 gallons of water and 1 lb of Wheat DME to do my hop boil. Add rest of wheat DME at flameout and cool wort and then transfer to LBK and pitch yeast.

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Early morning brew session. Started my Camilla's Folly Recipe. OG was a bit lower than expected from qbrew and from the recipe online but that's fine. I can't wait to taste this one in February. Current Brew Status: 1. American Light - Bottled 12/24 2. Winter Dark Ale - Brewed 12/24 3. Camilla's Folly - Brewed 12/31

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1st Bottling & 2nd Brew Day

Monday (12/24) was a very, very busy day for me - one batch to bottle and one new batch to brew. Beer #1 (Classic American Light) had been fermenting for two weeks as of Monday and I felt it was ready. Sunday I took a FG reading of 1.006 and Monday had the same reading so with my patience getting the best of me I told myself it was done and ready to bottle. I moved the keg to the counter and cleaned out (santized) all my bottles and my bottling wand - decided to use 3 of the 1L Plastic Bottles and the rest would be 12oz Glass Bottles. Primed each bottle with the recommended amount of sugar from the Mr. Beer instructions (2.25 tsp for 1L & 0.75 tsp for 12oz) and then bottled using the wand. The bottling wand is probably the best purchase I have made so far and I am glad I didn't have to ever bottle without this thing. Capped all those bottles, threw them in some 6-pack holders and cleaned out the old LBK and let it air dry. Before I started bottling I actually started prepping for Beer #2 which I decided was going to be a Winter Dark Ale, which sounds delicious. The one thing I decided for this batch was that I am going to let it ferment in the LBK for 3 weeks, which puts me at a bottling date of about January 14th, which does seem really far away, but it should be worth it in the end. Anyway, so I sanitized my second LBK, my utensils and placed my can of Winter Dark Ale HME in some hot water to make it easier to get out. No other special ingredgients, just making this recipe straight up so I can get the process down correctly. The rest of this process just follows Mr. Beer's instruction sheet: fill LBK with 4 quarts of cold water, boil 4 cups of water and then remove from heat and pour the can of HME into the hot water until mixed, then pour this HME mixture into the LBK and fill the remaining space with cold water. At this point I check the temperature, take my OG reading and then pitch the yeast at about 68°F and get aerate the beer to give the yeast oxygen. I capped the LBK and put it in the closet which usually remains at about 68-70°F where it will stay for three weeks until its ready to bottle (after its FG readings). Monday (12/31) will be my next brew day - so excited to get stuff into a pipeline.

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First final gravity reading after two weeks in the fermenter. Then a taste - tastes like noncarbonated beer which is awesome. Pending the final gravity reading, tomorrow should be bottling day.

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Brewing Totals

2012 Totals: 4.3 Gallons

2013 Totals: 6.8 Gallons