God's Day Brew.

Pretty lame that I haven't posted anything since saying I wasn't going to post anything negative.... No, that doesn't mean that I've been very negative lately. I've actually been very active after work and having a good time.

I am brewing a new batch of beer as I type this. I thought I'd give a little play-by-play. I am brewing a Nut Brown Ale from The Cellar Homebrew.

As of this moment, I am steeping grains in 2 qts of water in the oven. I'm trying to get all the good starches converted to sugars. They're recipe doesn't call for that, but I've found it works well.

I've now sparged the grains as best I could with them being in a grain bag. I don't have all the proper equipment for an all grain batch, so I make it work so that I have the least amount of cleanup. Loose grains = lots of cleanup. Grain-bag = throw away. Anyways, I'm now waiting for the wort (yummy-almost-beer) to boil so I can add my hops. I am going to experiment and use a few different types of hops at different points in the boil (Goldings=60min, Domestic Chinook=40 and then finish with Centennial and the rest of the Goldings at 10min).

For those of you who don't know, I boil the wort (sugary-almost-beery-goodness) for 60 minuutes. The numbers above indicate how long before the end of the boil I will add them. Chinook hops will get added 40 mins prior to end of boil or 20 minutes into it. It's all very complicated and weird, but at least I have an hour to figure out what I'm doing. :) The resulting beer will probably be a fairly hoppy brown ale. Technically they're not supposed to be that hoppy but since it's my beer and my recipe...to hell with convention.

I'm really looking forward to this batch. I think the problem with under-carbonation has been found and I can take steps to make sure carbonation is sufficient or even over-compensated. The house is starting to smell fantastic and I am thinking I might need to crack a previous brew. Although, it is 11:00 am...maybe I'll wait another hour.

I just had a brief moment of panic. I remembered that Collin and I had pitched two packets of yeast to one of our brews (the Dubbel) leaving this batch yeast-less. Luckily the brew shop is open and Collin was willing to go get some even though I interrupted his shower. You're a gentleman and a scholar, Collin, I don't care what everyone else says. ;)

The wort has been aerated and the yeast pitched. All that's left to do now is finish the cleanup and wait for it to ferment. And then theres the bottling.....and the worrying about what it's going to be like. It's going to have the hoppiness of a Pale Ale, but will be as malty as a Brown (since it is a Brown, go figure). This'll definitely be an interesting experiment.