First Brew Back

  I finally got all settled in my new place in Oklahoma, and its pretty sweet. Detached garage, fairly enclosed elevated front porch, and best of all, a basement for brewing activities. Naturally, my first weekend in the new place, I had to christen the place with a batch of beer. I also started my keezer, which once to a more final stage will get its own blog post.
For being my first brew day in over 6 months, in a new location, while watching my 3 year old, and switching LHBS, it went ok. Before I left for basic training I was considering making a checklist for brewday, so I don't have to think nearly as much step to step (and between beers), and this solidified it. I didn't make any huge mistakes that would ruin my beer, mainly I just boiled longer than I wanted dealing with the chiller.

•      Malt bill
• 9 lbs Maris Otter
• 1 lb Munich 10L
• 1 lb Flaked Maize
• .5 Lb Crystal 40L
• Hops
• 1 oz Fuggles 70 min
• .5 oz Fuggles 40 min
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings 40 min
• 5 oz Fuggles 25 min
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings 25 min
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings 10 min
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings Dry Hop 7 Days
• Process
• Mash 3.6 Gal, 1 Hour @ 155F
• Collect 6.25 Gallons, 13 Bx, 76% Mash Efficiency
• Boil 100 Minutes, Top off with 1 gal to make 6 gal in the Fermentor. 
• Pitch 1 Packet Saf-ale 04, At 60F, free-rise to ambient basement temp (about 68)
• Ferment 14 Days, Cold Crash 48 hours and keg, 12 PSI
• OG 1.055, FG 1.016, 5.23% Abv, Est. 38 IBU.

     The beer turned out great. I ended up adding some dry hops, but misread my gravity and left them a little too long, but it was only a half ounce, so the grassy flavors didn't overpower anything. It came out crystal clear, and is nice and refreshing on tap, but unfortunately the food and beer safe tubing I purchased was leaching flavors, so I ordered some new tubing (AccuFlex Bev Seal Ultra) to re-run the existing two taps, and the next 2 taps (Stainless Perlick Faucets, I learned my lesson with my two cheap chrome faucets). 

   
     The next scheduled brewday is my House Barleywine, which I should get around to naming more descriptively, since I brew it about once every year, but I plan on starting this routinely every thanksgiving, and having a vertical every year on brewday, saving enough of each batch to have a vertical of every batch I have brewed when I leave the Army. Who doesn't want to partake in a 20 year vertical?