Busy Busy Week

This week has been crazy. We've had visitors and are getting ready for more visitors. Through it all I managed to find the time to move my Vanilla Stout to secondary to add the vanilla. The beer had a hot alcohol element to it. This should mellow out as it ages.

I am also working on my next incantation of my special bitter. I may do a double brew day and do two versions at once. I have a couple ideas on how to improve my recipe. I will decide how to move forward after tasting my first version. It will be ready to drink in a couple days.

Finally Stout!

I finally got around to brewing the stout that has been on my list for a couple months. It was the best brew day I've ever had. Everything went smoothly and I didn't forget anything! I overshot my gravity slightly, but that was due to my scaling of the recipe. It was only 3 points so it shouldn't be a big deal. I am really looking forward to this beer. The wort smelled so very delicious.

I also made my first yeast starter for this beer. Figured I would try it out since I could only get a propagator pack of the yeast I needed from the LHBS. I was nervous that I would somehow mess it up, but my fears were washed away when I woke up this morning and the stout was bubbling away intensely.

I'll have updates on this one when it is time to rack onto the vanilla.

New Toys!

Real life has gotten in the way of updating the blog, but I come bearing good news! I have a couple new brew toys! I bought a new thermometer which was desperately needed. I also got an immersion chiller. Until I can get some fermentation temperature control figured out the immersion chiller will have a huge effect on the quality of my beer. I will now be able to get the wort down to pitching temperature quickly. No more making tons of ice and sitting around for an hour+ to get the wort to cool.

The cheapest thing I purchased was a little pvc elbow from Lowes for $0.87.

When bottling by myself I have always had difficulty tipping the bucket to get the end of the wort out. Trying to keep the bucket balanced while filling bottles is just asking for disaster. The elbow acts as a dip tube and gets close to the bottom of the bucket. That will still pull the wort out without needing to tip the bucket.

When I bottled my special bitter last night the elbow worked like a charm. No tipping the bucket. It only left a few ounces of beer in the bucket as well as a little crud that came through in the siphon.