We had a big day Saturday, dad and I hooked up his new two faucet tower on the kegerator and we brewed two different recipes. Here is a picture of the two beautiful brews on tap:
We were messing around with the CO2 pressure trying to find the sweet spot for both of them, finally got it after this picture was taken. The one on the left is the Reunion IPA we brewed at the beginning of August, it is literally one of the best beers I've ever tasted. The one on the right is the Elbro Nerkte recipe that I modified. It tastes a lot better than the last time, much sweeter. You gotta love a beer that's ready to drink after two weeks.
After we got that set up and had one (or two, of each) we got to brewing. The first batch was a Pumpkin Ale, here's a picture of the ingredients:
It was a pretty straightforward recipe, 1lb of the crushed crystal malt that we steeped, then added the 6.6lbs of the amber extract which boiled for the full 60 minutes. Also added 1.5 ozs of Fuggles for the entire 60 minutes. All the pumpkin goodies (2lbs of pumpkin, 1tsp of cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg, as well as 1oz of ginger) went in with 10 minutes left. When we added them all in it smelled like pumpkin pie, can't wait to see how it tastes.
The next step was a barleywine, I can't wait to try it, unfortunately it has to be in the secondary for 168 days! The brewing calendar has it ready to drink in March 2013, here's the ingredients:
This had a lot of hops as you can tell. It was also the first time I've brewed with the dry extract. I have to admit, I much prefer liquid extract. This one smelled good too, I don't know that I've ever tried a barleywine, but I'll post updates next year once we've tried it.
I've said it before, but now we need to build our own kegerator. Between the two beers on tap and three that are now fermenting, we'll need a better way to serve all the delicious brew we've been making. I think we're slowing down on the brewing for a while because of how much we have, but hopefully I'll be posting updates about how the keezer is coming along. I'm also going to try and duplicate the 'Maroon Effect' ale that a local brewery in Blacksburg makes for tailgating this season.
