We transferred the ESB and stout last night. Both will turn out very nice. The ESB tastes somewhere between an ESB and a porter, the black patent we added (to add color) changed the flavor more than we thought it would. It will be interesting to see how it tastes after it is dry hopped.

We decided to cancel our December brewing session, since we both have kegerators full of beer (plus two more coming) and both our Decembers will be hectic. Our next brew session is currently scheduled for Jan 12th.

We brewed again on the 17th. We brewed the imperial stout and the ESB. The stout got renamed (again) Knock Out Stout and the ESB got renamed Blacked Out & Bitter (thanks to Jason N for the new name for the ESB). We added some black patent malt to "black out" the ESB. It worked pretty well, but could probably use a little bit more since it was more browned out then blacked out. We'll see how much the black patent changed the flavor.

I was going to calibrate our hydrometers to get an idea of how far off they are. I ended up not having time, which was just as well, since one of them broke on brewing day. It was the newer one that had the built in thermometer, so all our readings were taken with the older one. The gravities were pretty good, so I think we will probably keep the changes we made to the process.

We were tentatively planning to brew again next weekend, but I think we may not since both are kegerators are full and we still have two more beers coming.

Both IPAs have been transferred, kegged and tapped. We transferred them on the 25th, kegged them on the 9th and tapped them on the 10th. Chris was out to visit and brought some Bell's Two Hearted IPA with. Ours compares pretty well, but did not turn out quite as bitter as the Bell's. If we brew it again, we will change the hop schedule to make it more bitter. Since it ended up not that hoppy it got named Half-Hearted McHopperson. Both beers ended up over 6.1% (by vol) which is nearly as high as we have ever had the IPA before, so we were pretty happy with that. We added a mash out (raised the temperature of the mash to 170°) before we started sparging, which we think help boost our efficiency and we also gave each fermenter its own yeast.

My keg of maple porter ran out on the 23rd, so it lasted 10 days. It was a good beer.

Wow, third post this month, much better than how I started the year :) We brewed our IPA and another IPA recipe yesterday. The second IPA recipe is a Bell's Two Hearted IPA clone. Chris from MI will be visiting in November and suggested an oktoberfest, but since it would have been a lager it would not have been done in time, so when asked for a second choice he suggested the Bell's clone. He is going to bring a bottle with when he visits so we can see how ours compares. We tried a few more things to improve our efficiency (which has been dropping) and none of them appeared to had made a difference, which was disappointing. Not really sure what we have changed, we decided to take gravity readings with the other hydrometer we used to use. For both beers is read a 0.008 difference, which is about how much our beers have been off, so perhaps our efficiency has not been dropping and instead the new hydrometer we got is way off. We tested both a while back in water to see how far they were off. Both were off by a little, but not nearly 0.008. We plan to keep taking readings with both until we get an idea of which one is more accurate.

I still want to get a bottle of Rogue's Chipotle Ale to do a side-by-side with ours. Ours turned out great, but I don't remember what Rogue's tastes like, so I can't compare.

My keg of maple porter is nearly gone, it has been going very fast. Everyone has really enjoyed it, including Marc and I. Marc thinks it may be the best beer we have yet brewed.

We kegged the chipotle ale and the mapler porter tonight. Both turned out really well. I was concerned that we may have added too many chipotles, but I don't think we did. It has that great chipotle flavor, but isn't spicy and finishes really nicely. I think the maple this time around is the best we've ever done it, which is great since it will be going to our family & friends.

We kegged the birches and pale on June 6th. The pilsner (which is long gone) got transfered to secondaries on June 6th and kegged July 30th. In addition to having a low original gravity, it didn't ferment that well, so it had a pretty low alcohol content, but it still tasted pretty good.

We had our second brewing session for 2007. On September 16th we brewed a chipotle ale and the mapler porter. The chipotle got named Burn, Amy, Burn! Chipotle Ale and now perhaps Amy will quit complaining about not having a beer named after her :) We transfered both the chipotle and the porter to secondaries on September 27th. The porter was the first beer we brewed for family & friends so I hope it turns out well.

It has been a while again. I tapped the second keg of cider on the 12th of April. I added another half gallon of raw cider and Danika likes it better than the last batch.

We kegged the imperial stout and the IPA on the 2nd of April. I tapped the IPA on the 12th of April and the stout on the 14th. They both turned out not quite as strong as we were going for. The stout is awesome as usual, the IPA is pretty good and has gotten better with time. A few people have tried the IPA and all like it, it is a good beer it just does not fit the style that well.

We had our first brewing session for 2007. On April 29th we brewed a pale ale and a pilsner. Chris from MI tapped his birch tree for us and sent 12 oz of birch syrup. We added the syrup to one of the five gallon fermenters and dubbed it "Where my Birches At?", the other five gallons got dry hopped when we transferred them on the 9th. To thank Chris for the birch syrup, we sent him a 22 of each of cider, IPA and stout. No beer gun, so we will see how flat they are once he gets them. We bought a commercial thermostat for the fridge this time for the pilsner, it was not too expensive and temperature in the fridge only varies a degree or so. We will probably keg the pale soon since Marc's keg will be for Tina's graduation/birthday party that is coming up. When we keg the pale we will probably also transfer the pilsner to secondaries.

Happy new year. Last year was another great year of brewing. We kegged the second batch of blonde back in October on the 19th. It fermented quite a bit more than the first batch did while in the secondaries. The first batch went down to 1.014, the second to 1.006. I but my keg on N2 again. This time I upped the pressure of the CO2 before I tapped it, since the last time it seemed a bit flat. That was a mistake, the pours are all foam, and it takes quite a while to pour a glass, oh well, you live and learn. I am going to go back down to the 14 psi on the next keg, since I have been noting that commercial beers that are on N2 are also flat compared to their CO2 counterparts. At the end of October we started a hard cider. I got some fresh pressed raw cider locally from Minea Farm. On a day they were pressing their Aurora apples I went over with three of our primary fermenters and filled them to five gallons. We added the yeast and yeast energizer (last time we used yeast nutrient) and let them sit for a couple weeks. November 13th we transferred the cider to the secondaries, and on January 5th of the new year we kegged it. To sweeten the hard cider we added a third of a gallon of raw cider (which I bought from Minea Farm the day before we kegged, they seem to keep frozen cider year round) into the keg before we transferred the hard cider from the fermenters. It got tapped on the 9th. Danika likes it, but thinks it smells like bananas and says it could use a bit more raw cider.

Our last brewing session of the year was December 10th. We brewed our imperial stout and a heavier version of our IPA which we dubbed Matt's Country Strong. Unfortunately, the conversion for both beers was not that great, neither had as high of a original gravity as we would have liked. I had created a new sparger (see the equipment page for some photos) in hopes it would help fix the lower conversions we have had the last few times we have brewed. It did not seem to make much of a difference, so next time we may increase our mash time to 90 minutes to see if that helps. We transferred both the stout and the IPA to secondaries on January 5th. The stout fermented pretty well, the IPA did not. Perhaps it will be Matt's Country Sweet. Hopefully it will ferment more in the secondaries.

Still no beer gun or CO2 tank under the tree at Christmas. My plan is to order them... just like I said last year. My CO2 setup still leaks a bit, so it would be nice to have a second tank to hook up when the other runs out. I have had more out-of-staters ask me to send them beer and it would be nice to be able to enter our beer in some contests, good enough reasons to get the beer gun I think.