Got Some Dave On My Wall

Last night we bottled the DaveDave Dave and had a quick tasting. WOW. This is high quality shit. I would not have been able to foresee such a success (as things have gone so far), and you can simply taste the quality. all-grain really is better. Anyhow, we only used .25 lbs chocolate malt in the whole thing on top of 12 lbs 2-row and caramel 60... and the chocolate really really comes out strong on this one - VERY surprising. Now I know when I read other recipes for things that might be thicker and heavier and folks are only using just a half pound or maybe only a pound of specialty (read: roasted barley, black patent, chocolate malts, etc.) in their brew. Now I can see why. This stuff is really potent.

Anyhow, we bottles 12 12oz bottles, 14 22oz bombers, 4 500mL bottles and another 1L swing-top. It was about 3.75-4 gallons worth, so that equates to about 38-40 beers. Not too bad for coming up short on the grain runnings. Gonna have some good samples to have at around Christmas time or possibly a few weeks earlier. Cheers!

Pics From Our First All-Grain Brew Session

Success! We brewed a Dave. That's about it. Check out a few pics (too busy doing shit to take many), and be amazed!

Thinking about All Grain

So in a conversation with Caspito yesterday, I mentioned that maybe we won't do all-grain next week. Well, I think I've changed my mind. And I think I'm going to buy the setup today. I've been doing some research and come across one that seems like it's in a reasonable price range, seems pretty sturdy, and allows for long-time use. Check it:

Its 35-quart capacity (which translates into roughly 8.75 gallons in math easyspeak) will be plenty big for brewing. The large top of the burner will help prevent boil-over, since it's not 10 gallons, this will be very very helpful to keep things clean. I'm waiting to hear back some info from some BA'ers, and then I'm going to go to Lowes in Pleasant Ridge tonight or tomorrow to check out the thickness and feel, and go from there to see if I should get it. If it feels good, I'm in. I'll have to keep you updated on that one.

Thoughts?

Incredible All-Grain Read

For us, for the Chicago Branch, and for many other home brewers around the world, making the step into brewing itself, is one thing. Making the leap into all-grain brewing is a much more daunting and oftentimes unattainable and simply out of scope based on the complex write ups that many books and websites have. After a few discussions with local home brewers, I had a small idea of what was going on, but not enough understanding to move forward. I have recently been shown a website that captures the idea of all-grain brewing in an incredibly accessible way.

You can find the link ::here

Some key things to consider is that the brewing world sometimes finds itself caught up in its process description (read, sparging, lautering, striking, pitching, primary, secondary, wort, etc.) and doesn't give the opportunity to allow outsiders to focus on the actual how and why of brewing. This link breaks a lot of those things down for you really well. For instance, Striking is based on Strike Water, which is the heated water that is mixed with the grains originally that lead to the breakdown of the sugar enzymes while in the mash tun. Striking is the action of "putting the water into the mash tun," essentially.

In other words, just read it. It's awesome and it will make you want to drive immediately to the brew store and start all-grain today.