Brasserie Le Diacre

IPA v.1a

2011-04-25T22:14:00.004-05:00

Homebrewing - thy name is improvisation. Went to the LHBS to pick up the ingredients for my IPAV1, and they were out of Columbus & Simcoe hops. So I went with an oz. of Nugget @ 12% AA & an oz. of Centennial @ 9.1% AA. Oh, and I found a 1/2 oz. of Columbus hops from a previous batch in the freezer. (Good recordkeeping on that hop inventory, Deke!) So I'm going with the following hop schedule for this brew:

1 oz. Nugget @ 12% - 60 min.
1/2 oz. Columbus @ 12% - 30 min.
1/2 oz. Centennial @ 9.1% - 10 min.
1/2 oz. Amarillo @ 6.9% - 5 min.
1 oz. Cascade - dry hop

Slainte

IPA Version #1

2011-04-16T10:34:00.009-05:00

I've never brewed an IPA before - don't know exactly why, but just haven't. I've also focused primarily on clone recipes in my brewing career, and haven't dabbled in creating my own recipes. Much of the reason for this is that up until January I have been an extract/partial-mash brewer, and brewing clones has allowed me to explore various styles without the headache of recipe formulation. But now that I have made the jump to all-grain I want to expand my chops further & develop my own "house" recipes. With that in mind, I have decided to brew one of my favorite's - an American IPA!!

I just love a good, hoppy IPA!! After a little research, I've settled on the following recipe for my IPA v.1:

11# Two-row pale
1# Munich
.75# Crystal 40L
.25# Crystal 60L
1 oz. Columbus @ 60
.5 oz. Simcoe @ 10
.5 oz. Amarillo @ 5
1 oz. Cascade - dry hop

Estimated vitals:
Efficiency-70%
ABV-6.9%
IBU-68
SRM-15

This should give me a good base from which to begin tinkering!!!

Slainte!

Brew Day Today!

2011-03-30T08:33:00.007-05:00

I'm brewing an Irish Red Ale today. I will be entering this beer into my club's annual homebrew contest, the Celtic Brew-Off. This is also my 3rd all-grain batch. Lovin' this all-grain brewing! Wish I had made the move a lot sooner. One improvement over extract brewing that I have noticed so far is much better fermentation with better attenuation. The fermentation's have started much quicker & have been more vigorous (I've had to replace the airlocks with blow-off tubes). I guess this is because of more fermentable's in the wort, or fresher wort?? Is this correct? Anyway, the recipe is from BYO's Style Profile from the March-April 2009 issue. 10.5# two row pale 6 oz. Crystal 40 6 oz. Crystal 120 5 oz. roasted barley 1 oz. Kent Goldings - 5% AAU @ 60 min. White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale yeast According to my brewing spreadsheet, I should have a 5.7% ABV beer with 18 IBU, 23 SRM - all assuming 70% efficiency. More later!

Bottling Time Again!

2011-02-12T14:09:00.004-06:00

I've bottled two batches the last two weeks. Last Saturday I bottled my virgin all-grain batch, which was supposed to be a SNPA clone. I calculated the recipe at 65% efficiency and it came in at 72%! So instead of a moderately hoppy APA I have instead a decidedly unhoppy IPA. The beer comes in at 6.2% ABV & 40 IBU's.

Today I got around to bottling a Belgian Strong Golden, or is that a Belgian Golden Strong? Shrug?? I participated in my homebrew club's New Year's Day Brew-in & my partner & I brewed up a 10 gallon batch & split it. This beer will come in at 7.9% ABV. Not sure of the IBU's as I didn't get the recipe. All I know is that it contained pale, munich, victory, aromatic malts, homemade invert sugar & Lyle's syrup. I will be entering both beers in the Bluebonnet Brew-Off. It will be interesting to see how they come out!

Cheers!

Bottling Time

2010-07-10T10:53:00.002-05:00

I will be bottling tomorrow night. Gonna bottle the Summer Saison that I brewed back on 6/19. The yeastie's stalled out on me with this batch. OG was 1.064 & it was resting at 1.018 as of 7/7. The anticipated FG was supposed to be 1.013, so I tried pitching a pack of US-05 on it to try and finish it out, but so far there has been no apparent activity. I will take another gravity reading today and if it's still in the 18 range, I will go ahead and bottle as is.

In a couple of past batches where the yeast have not finished their work, I have racked the batches to secondary and added two tablets of beano which helped knock off some additional points and finish out the beer. I didn't want to try that route this time as one of the unsavory side effects of using beano is WAYYYY too much foam when pouring a beer. You end up with a glass full of foam and have to wait while it transforms itself into something drinkable. I have yet to see any negative effects on flavor, aroma, etc. using the beano approach - just the issue with the excessive foam.

Prost

DB Review

2010-04-26T21:48:00.002-05:00

Sitting here tonight and reviewing my notes of past brews. I started brewing in '07 and in my first year I only brewed 3 batches or 15 gallons. In '08 I was able to up the number to 5 batches or 25 gallons. Last year ('09) I was able to brew 6 batches. So far this year I've brewed 3 batches with another one coming up (I hope this weekend.) Not exactly setting the world on fire!!! I hang my head in shame at how little I've produced to this point in my career. That's a pretty paltry record considering that I can legally brew 200 gallons a year and to date I've brewed 85!!! Egads! Oh, the humanity!!! I've got to get busy and brew! For my own edification, here is a list of beers I've made with the dates brewed:

DB#1 6/10/07 Cincinnati Pale Ale
DB#2 7/14/07 Bumble's Special Porter
DB#3 11/3/07 Tommyknocker Maple Brown Ale
DB#4 1/19/08 Amber Ale
DB#5 4/27/08 Hefeweizen
DB#6 7/26/08 Oatmeal Stout
DB#7 9/13/08 Pale Ale
DB#8 11/15/08 AHS Oatmeal Stout
DB#9 1/11/09 AHS Newcastle Brown Ale Clone
DB#10 1/31/09 AHS Extra Special Bitter
DB#11 4/18/09 Arthur Conan Doyle Scottish 60/-
DB#12 6/14/09 Summit EPA Clone
DB#13 8/18/09 Anchor Steam Clone
DB#14 10/17/09 Carolina Nut Brown Ale Clone
DB#15 1/17/10 Coconut Porter (based on Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter Clone)
DB#16 2/16/10 AHS Wheat Stout
DB#17 3/28/10 Hefeweizen

Again, for my own edification, I'm going to try and post the recipes over the next few days (weeks???) and specs for each of the beers listed above. Unfortunately, I don't have tasting notes on any of them, but I hope to have notes for the Coconut Porter, Wheat Stout, and Hefeweizen, as well as all brews going forward.

Cheers

Hefeweizen Bottled

2010-04-13T19:44:00.003-05:00

Bottled a hefeweizen on Sunday. Tried something with this batch that I had not done before which was a late extract addition. The first hefeweizen I brewed came out looking like a dunkel, but this one's color was more closer to style. A nice golden yellow color.

Aroma was very estery (banana) as I paid no heed to fermentation temps - just set it in the pantry and let 'er rip. Temps were on the high side of the recommended range,73 - 75.

Also tried a dry wheat beer yeast on this one. Used the Safbrew WB-06. Fermentation activity was definetely less than vigorous compared to the White Labs Hefeweizen liquid yeast used on the last hefe batch, but it still fermented out completely. Dropped from an original gravity of 1.052 to 1.012. ABV approximately 5.2%.

Here's the simple recipe used:

6 lbs. Munton's Wheat DME
1/2 oz. Tettnang hops (5.1%) @ 60 minutes

Boiled 2# DME with the Tettnang hops for 45 minutes, at which point I added the rest of the DME, brought back to a boil & boiled for 15 more minutes.

I'll crack a bottle this weekend & see how it's doing. In the meantime, I think I'll have another stout!

Cheers, quoth the Deacon

As You Were!!

2010-04-09T11:31:00.003-05:00

Move along, move along....nothing to see here!!! As you were!

Really, why do I have this blog thinggy? Never use it. I think I should just shut it down. Maybe. I dunno, maybe not. Maybe I'll get inspired to get off my a$$ and post something instructive that I've done brewing wise. But then again, maybe I'll just relax and have a homebrew.

Cheers

New Year - New Post!!!

2010-01-09T09:04:00.005-06:00

What a way to start the new year! My Horns finally make it back to the Big Show and Colt goes down on the first series, and my Horns go on to lose to a pretty good 'Bama team. Really proud of the way the Horns hung in there & especially of Gilbert's play in the 2nd Half. I'm looking forward to seeing Gilbert develop & what he looks like when he has a full season under his belt.

To make matters worse - I'm dangerously low on homebrew. Down to my last sixer & the carboys are empty!!!! Egads!!!! How did I allow this calamity to befall me? Methinks it's because I'm still broke from Christmas. If the situation doesn't rectify itself I may be reduced to drinking Natty Light! (Insert screams of horror).

But I do hope to rectify the situation soon. Hope to brew up a Coconut Porter next. I wanted to try this after seeing an episode of Three Sheets (the Hawaii episode) where Zane Lamprey gives on a try. Sounded good so I thought I would give it a try. Plus, it just gives me an opportunity to do something different & out of the ordinary (for me anyway), as I usually stick to Reinheinsgebot brewing.

Later

Brew Day Preparations

2009-04-18T09:49:00.002-05:00

Got home from some friends last night around 10 pm, and today being brew day, had to do some prep work for today's brewtivities. My brew day preparations involve two steps:

1) Making a yeast starter, and
2) Making my top-off ice. (I'll explain.)

I don't have an wort chiller of any kind, so to cool my wort at flame-out I use a couple of jugs of ice that I've prepared before hand. A night or two before brew day I will boil several gallons of water to sanitize, allow to cool and then put into cleaned and sanitized milk jugs and allowed to freeze overnight. On brew day, I will crush the ice and add to my sanitized fermenter bucket.

The great thing about this particular method is that it achieves two things for me. One, it of course cools my wort down to pitching temp in no time flat. The other benefit is that as the ice melts it provides my top-off water. I typically do 3 gallon boils on the stovetop so I'm always in need of top-off water to get to 5 gallons.

This method won't work when I get around to jumping up to all-grain, so of course I'm going to have to invest in a chiller as some point. Someday!

What are your brew day preparations?

Newcastle Brown Clone

2009-01-13T07:20:00.003-06:00

I was able to brew this past weekend - on Jan. 12 to be exact. I brewed up a Newcastle Brown clone recipe kit from AHS. I brewed it for a friend who's a huge Newcastle United fan and he wanted some homemade "Newkie" to watch his beloved Magpies with. Anxious to see how it turns out.

One interesting note: No airlock activity as of yet. This is the second batch in a row that I've used White Labs British Ale yeast (WLP005). With the Oatmeal Stout the batch completely fermented out without airlock activity, so I don't know yet if this is indicative of a leaky bucket, or if this is common with this yeast strain. No worries yet, as the stout turned out excellent - I'll just have to exercise some patience with the brown.

A Post - Finally!!!

2008-12-09T08:54:00.003-06:00

Ya'll,

I haven't posted in quite a while, and since I'm at home playing hookie from work today (fighting a cold mind you) I thought I would post something - anything!

I've added some links on the sidebar with some blogs that track the burgeoning craft beer scene here in the Lone Star State. I've also added the great breweries here in state as well - gotta support your local breweries - especially when they're producing some mighty tasty brews!

While I've been busy with school, the time hasn't been totally devoid of brewing activity. Since the batch of oatmeal stout that I brewed this summer was nasty, I wanted to do another batch so I ordered a kit from AHS. I was able to bottle the batch this past weekend and I must say that the sample tasted great! Can't wait for this one!

I dumped the sixer of cider that I had bottled back in May. I tried a bottle last month and it was horrid! Disappointing. When I bottled the batch it had a wonderful flavor with a body similar to a white wine. The six months in the bottle didn't help - maybe more time aging would've helped. I don't know, but I'll try again in future.

Last but not least - my 'Horns couldn't get any BCS love! It stinks seeing those dog-butted Zero U's playing for the national championship when we beat 'em. Be that as it may, if we had taken care of business against Tech we wouldn't be having this conversation! We get the Fiesta Bowl as a consolation prize playing Ohio State. Should be a great game. Hook 'Em Horns and beat the Buckeyes!

Prost

Gotta luv the blues!

2008-09-02T22:59:00.002-05:00

A little "Smokestack Lightning" from the Howlin' Wolf.

Gotta love the Wolf!

Latest Brewtivities

2008-08-09T14:35:00.006-05:00

A quick update on the brewtivities of late.

I hosted a shindig a few weeks ago. The hefeweizen received really good reviews. In fact, one of the guys in attendance asked I could supply him with a twelve pack of homebrew every two weeks! Whoa!!! I'm really going to have to ramp up production now! At least he said he would pay to cover my costs. He's partial to porters & stouts, so with that being said, I did some research and came up with the following recipe for an oatmeal stout to brew. Here it is:

3# Light DME
2# Two row pale malt
1# oats
.5# roasted barley
.5# chocolate malt
.5# crystal 60l
1 oz. Glacier - 7.4% AA for 60 minutes
White Labs Irish Ale yeast

After listening to "The Jamil Show" episode on oatmeal stouts, I decided to try my hand at my first partial mash. I bought a two gallon rubbermaid cooler to mash the grains in. I used a trial version of ProMash to calculate the recipe specifics, e.g., strike water temp., etc. and proceeded to brew.

I can't say that my first partial mash was a success. ProMash & some other online recipe calculators that I use had an estimated OG of 1.050 - I came in at 1.044! My calculated efficiency came in at 56%. Ewwwww! Lame. To top this off - I think I underpitched the yeast. At 75% attenuation the FG should approximately be 1.011. As of last night, I'm sitting at 1.016 - and this after two weeks in primary. Be that as it may, I tried a swig of my hydrometer sample, and I was pleased with the flavor - not great but good. At least it looks as though this batch will at least be drinkable.

I definitely want to try my hand at partial mashing again, so I'm planning a pale ale next. I will be reviewing my procedures to see if I can improve on my efficiency, and hopefully I'll be brewing again next weekend.

Later

Hefeweizen Photos

2008-06-01T14:15:00.004-05:00

Playing with the camera some more.....a couple of pics of my hefeweizen. Ummmm, tasty!!!

Just a few photos......

2008-05-31T19:12:00.004-05:00

I've enjoyed reading the other brew blogs out there, and one of the things that I like about these other blogs is the pictures used which visually bring this great hobby to life! I've wanted to post pictures of my own adventures, but I find that life gets in the way (work, grad school, church, family, etc.) Anyway, the last post and today's is my first crack at adding pictures to the blog. Nothing fancy with today's shots - just a few of my maple brown ale. As you can see, I don't quite have the photographer's eye just yet! Enjoy.

Cider House Rules!!!

2008-05-29T21:00:00.016-05:00

Not much brewing these days. The hefeweizen has had two weeks in the bottle - I tried one Monday night and it was good. More on that later. In an earlier post I had mentioned that I had bought a fermentation box. I had wanted to have a post on the construction of the box - but that didn't happen. I did however want to share a few pics of the new box in action.

As you can see, it's cheap. Styrofoam construction - but hey, I'm a homebrewer and if it ain't cheap I ain't buyin'!

I've wanted to try brewing a cider, and I wanted to give the box a test run so I put together a small 1 gal. batch to put the box through it's paces. Simple recipe - 1 gal. of apple juice, 1 cup of table sugar, and 1 packet of Red Star Champagne yeast. Can't wait to give it try.

Inside shot of the fan and thermostat.

Shot of the ice compartment. Notice the crack near the fan. Busted the styrofoam during construction and had to use the Liquid Nails to glue the strip back on.

A shot of the temperature control mechanism.

Everything is working fine. Can't wait to try it out on my next batch of brew! The box should last long enough until I replace it with a fridge!!!

Later.

Brew Day......Yesterday

2008-04-28T20:12:00.003-05:00

My bud came over last night & I was able to introduce him to the fine art of homebrewing. Unfortunately, my LHBS was out of roasted barley so we were not able to make the oatmeal stout I had wanted to try. The guys down at the homebrew shop talked me into trying a hefeweizen. A hefe!!!! Ya'll, I have to admit it - I'm not that big a fan of wheat beers, but the guys convinced me that homebrewed Weizen beers taste so much better than the bottled versions. I took the bait & we picked a recipe from a book on clone beers for my buddy & I to try out. Well, here is the simple recipe that we used:

6# Munton's Wheat DME
3/4 oz. Sterling hops - 6% alpha for 60 minutes
White Labs Hefeweizen Ale yeast

The brew session went off without a hitch - we hit our target OG of 1.055 spot on, and the batch is currently bubbling away as I type this. I'm actually looking forward to trying this one out. I'll keep ya posted on it's progress.

On another note, I was able to score supplies for a foamboard fermentation chamber. The owner of my LHBS was unloading this stuff that he's had sitting in a storage shed for a while, and I was able to get pre-cut foamboard, a thermostat, a fan, and a power supply. Whoo-hoo!!!! I'll be putting it together in the next week or two as time permits. I hope to take pictures of the project to post later.

Later

Oatmeal Stout #1

2008-04-22T11:54:00.003-05:00

I think I have settled on an oatmeal stout for the next batch. After a bit of research I have come up with the following recipe:

6# Light DME
1# Oats
.75# Roasted Barley
.75# Crystal 120L
.25# Chocolate

Whatcha think? Feedback appreciated!

I'm also thinking of trying White Labs English/British or Irish Ale yeast for this one. This will be a first as well as I have only used dry yeast in my previous batches. I may even try making a yeast starter as well. Oh, what an adventurous lad I am!!

I'll keep you posted.

Still Here

2008-04-17T19:05:00.002-05:00

Howdy All!

I'm still here - and I'm still surfing around the net looking for a recipe for the next batch. I'm leaning towards a stout. Maybe an oatmeal stout. Yum!

I've also talked my best bud into helping me out with this next batch. Maybe we'll have a new disciple join the homebrewing community. We'll see!

Later

What to Brew???

2008-03-18T10:30:00.002-05:00

It's getting time to brew again. But what to brew? Ahh, that's the question of the moment. Must give this question serious consideration.

I've been searching the net lately for ideas for the next batch (#5 for those keeping count). I've yet to brew a stout so I'm thinking about an oatmeal stout. But summer is coming soon, and I would also like to try a light summer brew, so I'm also toying with the idea of a honey wheat. Brew Your Own had some great looking summer brews in the July/August '07 issue. I may try one of those. We'll see.

Pantry Ale Update

2008-01-29T20:03:00.000-06:00

Checked the SG of the latest batch over the weekend, and the readings came in at 1.022 - same as last Thurs. I went ahead and pitched in some more yeast Sun. night and as of tonight (Tues.) there is no activity in the airlock. Are the yeasties busy at work? I dunno. It sure doesn't seem so, but what do I know. I'm still a rookie at this. I'm going to give it 'til Thurs. and check the gravity again and see where we stand.

Later

UPDATE

I checked the gravity Thurs. night and we're still at 1.022. I'm going to rack to secondary today and give it a week and see how things shake out. The samples that I have tried have tasted good - so I'm not worried if it's stuck at 1.022, I think the beer is still going to turn out great! But the beancounter in me wants to hit the numbers dead on! I'm torn - what to do? This indecision is killing me! What to do?

I seem to recall the sage advice of a much wiser brewer than myself. "Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew." Ahhhh, sage advice indeed!

Quick Note

2008-01-26T10:29:00.000-06:00

Ya'll,

I was able to brew my "Clean Out the Pantry Ale" last weekend. Yes! According to the recipe calculators over at Tasty Brew my target OG was 1.055 - I came in at 1.056. Success!

I took my first gravity reading Thurs. night and it came in at 1.022. Tasty Brew's calculator's estimated 1.014 for the FG. Still a ways to go it looks like. I plan to take another reading today and see where we stand. If the reading is still the same I may have to stir up the yeasties to see if I can get some more activity out of them. With the last batch, I had a reading of 1.022 three days straight and I thought fermentation was complete, and when I transferred to secondary, fermentation kicked off again dropping it to 1.012. My guess is that we're not done yet, but we'll see!

One nice thing about this batch that I hadn't planned on is the temp's. Here in Texas the temp is usually HOT! And because of this I usually keep my fermenter in a water bath covered with a T-Shirt, but it's been cold here lately, so no water bath for the fermentation bucket. I've been able to keep it in the pantry where the temp has been a steady 68 degrees. Nice.

Another note: I was able to share my Maple Brown with my neighbor across the street - and he loved it! He was so intrigued by the idea of making one's own beer that he wants to watch the next time I whip up a batch. And he wants to call my operation, "Across the Street Brewery." I dunno - what do you think? It has a ring to it - maybe I should rename the blog!

I couldn't get my next door neighbor to try any - he said he had had homebrew before that tasted like pondscum, and that he would stick with his Budweiser thank you very much! I now have a challenge - to come up with a beer that even my neighbor will like. Any ideas?

Later

No Brewing!!!

2008-01-15T08:06:00.000-06:00

Alas, and did poor Yorick weep (huh???) ....as there was no brewing this past weekend! Egads! The horror - the humanity!!!!!

I was able to run by the LHBS to pick up supplies for my brew session, but alas, it was not to be. The busyness of the weekend got in the way - better luck next weekend! And, as I was afraid of, my LHBS was out of the hops that I wanted - Northern Brewer. In fact, he was out of quite a bit of hops. He did have the Willamette hops that I wanted to try, and instead of the Northern Brewer I'm going to try Perle as my bittering hop. He was also out of Crystal 60L, so I had to settle for Crystal 40L. I'm sure I won't notice the difference! Anyway, my "Clean out the Pantry Ale" will look something like this:

6 lbs. Amber DME
1/2 lbs. Crystal 40L
1 oz. Perle (5.7%) bittering
1 oz. Willamette (4.6%) aroma

More later!

Batch #4

2008-01-09T18:56:00.001-06:00

I have 2 lbs. of amber DME from previous batches that I need to do something with, so I've been searching the 'net for recipe ideas in order to use this stuff up. Here's what I've come up with:

6 lbs. amber DME
1/2 lb. Crystal 60 L
1 oz. Northern Brewer
1 oz. Willamette

I'm not sure what style this falls under since I found these ingredients used in bitters, amber & pale ales, but I plan on calling it "Clean Out the Pantry Ale." I'll run by the LHBS to pick up the rest of the supplies to round out the recipe and brew it up this weekend - and hopefully the homebrew store will have these hops on hand.

Later

What Santa Didn't Bring.

2008-01-07T07:54:00.000-06:00

Ya'll,

I meant to blog last Friday on my plans for 2008 as I stated in my last post, but that just didn't happen. Anyway, here goes.

I'm a new brewer. I only have three batches under my belt to date. As a new brewer my equipment is rather rudimentary. I have the basic beginner's kit that I purchased from my LHBS - a plastic ale pail, a glass carboy, hydrometer, thermometer, airlock, etc. and that's about it. I've discovered in my short time of brewing that a couple of items would help with the quality of my brews, and here they are:

Fermentation chiller as can be found here. Here in Texas it is hot - hot - hot, especially in summer, and achieving desirable fermentation temperatures has been somewhat of a challenge. One thing that I have tried is keeping my primary fermenter in a tub of water. The first time I filled the bathtub in our kids bathroom with water and placed a frozen milkjug of water in every evening (which of course didn't make the wife too happy taking up one of the bathrooms for a week!) On batch 3 I placed the fermenter in a tub out in the garage with a T-shirt over the top of the ale pail. In both cases I still had sizeable variations in temperature.
Wort chiller such as this. With the price of copper these days, this hasn't been a high priority, but it sure would be a lot faster than the ice bath method.
Propane burner. The wife doesn't like it when I stink up the house on brewday as I utilize the stovetop for cooking the wort. This item would allow me to move the operation to the garage where the smell is not an issue.
A 7-10 gallan brewpot. I am currently using a 4 gallon pot which is barely big enough. I'm looking ahead to when I jump to all-grain with this item!

Well, these are just of few of the items that I want to add to the brewery operation this year. Maybe I can add a used fridge for lagering if the budget allows!

I'm Back!!!!!!

2008-01-03T07:54:00.001-06:00

I'm back after an extended Christmas break that lasted through New Year's Day. I hope everyone had a joyous Christmas season & a great New Year's! Our family traveled across the great state of Texas visiting & enjoying time with extended family. It was also good to spend time reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas - not the self-indulgent consumerism of America - but on the Self-Giving One who gave Himself that we might have Life, and Life more abundantly! May I follow His example and give of myself to make life better for those in my little corner of this earth!

I was able to share some of my homebrew with my Dad - it's good to know that if I were ever to go professional at this that I would have at least have one loyal customer! I think that he has gotten as much of a kick out of my homebrewing as I have - he really enjoys sampling the end product!

Dad got me some beer mugs for Christmas to add to my collection - a Yuengling pilsner glass & a Sierra Nevada mug. Cool! Did Santa bring you any cool brew gear! Tomorrow I want to post on what Santa didn't bring - my equipment wish list for 2008.

Maple Brown Ale

2007-12-17T11:48:00.000-06:00

Last night I opened the first bottle of batch#3 - a Maple Brown Ale. Note to self: do not drink ice cold - very bitter! Ugggghhhhhh!!!!! My first thought upon tasting was that I had two cases of very nasty tasting beer, but as the brew warmed it tasted much better - so much so that I think that I'm going to like this beer after all! I'll post a pic of the brew and tasting notes on a later post.

For those interested, here is the recipe:

6lbs. light lme
.75 lbs. Victory malt
.25 lbs. Chocolate malt
.25 lbs. Caramel 80L
8.5 oz. pure Maple syrup
1 oz. Chinook (bittering) @ 60 mins.
1 oz. Fuggles (flavoring) @ 30 & 15 mins.

Welcome to Deacon Brewing!

2007-12-12T13:27:00.001-06:00

Welcome to the internet home of Deacon Brewing. This is my first foray into the blogosphere and I've created this blog to document my new hobby of homebrewing.

I came across homebrewing awhile back surfing the net and I have to say that I was intrigued at the thought of making homemade hooch! I read about it all over the net before I finally bit the bullet and gave it a try. To be honest, I was expecting pondscum on my first batch - but I was shocked at how good that first one was. And needless to say, I'm hooked. I'm three batches into this new obsession and I'm already looking down the road to all-grain!

Anyway, I hope to be posting the trials, errors, successes and failures of this new endeavor.

Prost!