When good brewing goes bad...Xmas beer test run.

Well brew day is in the books...what a cluster bomb...

Planned a great recipe for my christmas beer, a ginger-molasses imperial stout.

Planning is but a small part of a project. For some reason I chose to forgo adding Munich malt, why I don't know. Then my mash temp was low by 3 degrees (not too big a deal). Then my gravity was off by 10 points, as seems the standard for any high gravity beer even though I continue to lower the projected efficieny. And finally I can no longer get the wort below 78-80 now that the water is getting to that temp. I even had a pre-chiller going with ice and salt...still no dice after over 30mins of chilling, stirring, swirling, etc.I guess I'll have to start freezing some water bottles or move to Alaska in the summer! Days like this make me feel like a rookie!

The right way to do an American Pilsner...

A true beer this Pilsner is,
Not weak, tastless, Clydesdale horse piss.
It's big and it's bold,
On your palate it will hold,
A flavor your taste buds will miss!

American Pilsners have a particularly bad rap for beer snobs out there thanks to the efforts of Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing. Don't get me wrong, these companies garner tremendous respect for me as a hombrewer because they produce a consistent, quality product. Their product, however, is a far cry from the original CAP that was full-bodied and full of flavor...

So I took it upon myself to try and recreate the CAP the way it was meant to be. Only thing is I am cleaning out the winter grain stock and had pilsner malt (CAPs usually use 6-row malts) and 2 pounds of corn. Either way I went big, with a strong starting gravity that sould put us in the 6-6.5% ABV range. Balanced that with a heartier hop bill than normal and a bit of Munich to give it a tad more flavor. I have high hopes for this brew!

Back from Vacation

Spent a week at the beach with the wife drinking homebrew and hooch...Good Times...

Back home and brewed a Dunkel yesterday, trying to get rid of some pilsner malt. I still have a good bit of it, thinking of doing a big classic American Pilsner later this week as well.