I have a major issue here at the house... an empty keg. Actually, I'll have 2 empty kegs once I go to the homebrew store and buy a 3rd one. Major issue. My goal is to brew 3 brews before the end of my holiday shutday, which is Sunday Jan 2nd. Yes.. 3, two to fill the empty kegs and one for backup when one of them goes down. Sounds easy enough, but with brewing taking about 5 hours and other commitments over my break, it can be a little tricky. Here's the 3 brews I've picked:
1. Irish Red Ale from Midwest Supplies. This was the 2nd brew I ever did, granted it was extract. I figured I'd give it another round. This was a request from my friend Lee as he enjoys reds.
2. "Bombs Away" I-Paul-A. This is a crazy ass IPA recipe developed by my buddy Paul. He holds the recipe close so I feel good that I was given the grain profile. So I cannot go into details of what drops all into this, but I will say that it has 9.5 oz of hops (That's stupid high, the most I've used so far has been 3) and beersmith is predicting the following: Est Original Gravity: 1.072, Est Alcohol: 6.7%, IBU: 100.2. I've had this beer twice and it's amazing. It's close to a Surly Furious. With all those hops I'm gonna have to open up the wallet.. it's gonna be spendy.
3. German Style Helle. It's been a few months since I had a helle on tap. I'm going to develop this recipe on my own. I guess I should probably start here soon. LOL.
A little update: on Christmas Eve I tapped the Sophie Coffee Stout. It's amazing. My fear that the coffee was going to be too strong was fine. Great stout flavor with a nice coffee aftertaste. One of my better beers yet. I think the thing I'm most excited about with that brew is it's my first recipe that I created.
I'll keep you all updated as I attempt my challenge. If you're sitting around this week and want to learn about all grain brewing, drop me a line. It can be a bit tricky to brew with just me at times. I'll also be updating this blog a little with some links to recipes that I care to share along with some other goodies.
Prost!
-Ryan
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI just started homebrewing this fall and did my first extract brew in October. It was an IPA and it was not a bad brew for my first run.
I wish I had been doing this when I lived in MN since there I had room to spread out and Midwest Supplies was just down the road.
Love the blog. Send me some beer.
-Etch
Awesome to hear man! Yeah it's too bad that you no longer live here. Is the fam down with you now? Where are you at? KC?
ReplyDeleteHope you have some of that coffee stout left when we get back from Florida!!
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