Steinfillers' Porter

Since I no longer have access to a cooler (mashtun) I decided to go back to a partial mash brew. The kit cost $28.95 without tax from Steinfillers in Long Beach -Cheap! I might only save 7 bucks doing a all-grain brew. Definitely worth the saved time and hassle for now until I have better equipment and can buy bulk grains and hops. I was also tired of weak beers due to poor mashing so I'm going back to the basics! Process was much easier and took about 4 hours.



Ingredients



Grains:

8 lbs. Pale Malt Extract
.50 lbs chocolate malt
.50 lbs crystal malt, 75* Lovibond
.25 lbs brown malt
.25 lbs black patent

Hops:

US Goldings (2 oz at 60 minutes)
Willamette (1 oz at finish)

Yeast:

Safale S-04 Ale Yeast



The suggested Original Gravity was 1.062 and FG was 1.015-1.018. I ended up with about 5.5 gallons minus some hops I left out of the fermenter. This would explain the slightly lower OG. The actual values:

OG: 1.061
FG:1.0241
ABV: 4.9%

Dumpster Diving

Dumpster diving is simply amazing. Last night 4 friends and myself found over 200 pounds of food on our way back from an art show. The dumpster art was much more original than the countless paintings of Laguna Beach. Enough. Here's a picture of about 1/5 of the total haul.

My Equipment

I thought I'd write a post outlining my equipment. Here goes:



5 Gallon bucket with spigot. Since I only have one brew pot and one fermentor, I use this to drain mashed wort, to transfer to secondary fermentor, and to bottle.



Use these to get filtered water.




Bottle caps, hydrometer, bottle capper.



Brew pot (7-8 gallon aluminum, formerly a turkey fryer), giant whisk, grain scale, 1 gallon fermentor, bottle brush, wort chiller, and pitcher for various tasks.



Another view.

Costs, estimates based on what I remember.

Bottling bucket with spigot: $15
6 Gallon Glass Carboy: Free (from friend, costs about 60 bucks new.
Brew Pot: Free (from an old roommate).
Whisk: Free (see above)
Hydrometer: $5
Bottle Capper: $15
Grain Scale: Free
1 Gallon Glass Carboy: $5
Wort Chiller (20 feet of copper): $65 to build.
Siphon: $10 to build.

I've also been using a big 10+ gallon cooler/mashtun owned by a roommate. I'm moving out this month so I'll have to invest in one of my own.

Chimay Red Clone - Sort Of

I've brewed beer about 4 times in the past, and have been involved in brewing with 2 friends on a few occasions as well. I thought it would be good to document my recipes, as the last 2 batches of brown ale were absolutely terrible (but drinkable). Here is a picture from the last brown ale:



Here is my Recipe for my current brew, which is supposedly a clone of Chimay Red I took this from a website.

Grain Bill:
11 lbs American 2 Row Malt
1 Oz. chocolate malt (Does this even do anything?)
1/6 lb. Aromatic malt
1/2 lb. Victory Malt (Briess)


Hop Schedule:
2 Oz. Chinook at 0 minutes(11.6%)
.75 Oz. Tettnanger Pellets at 50 minutes(6.15%)

Mashed all grains with about 3.5 gallons of water for an hour, stirring three times and adding about .5 gallons of boiling water to keep temperature at around 152 F. Sparged at 170 F exactly with about 4 gallons. Boiled wort for an hour, chilled, siphoned to fermentor, and pitched 2 packets of dry yeast (kindof old). Woke up today (after 12 hours of pitch) to fantastic fermentation! Took a lot longer to begin fermenting than my previous 2 batches, so hopefully its a good sign.

OG (5/11/09): 1.0420 and adjusted for 80 F temperature is about 1.0438 (not happy with this).
FG (5/31/09): 1.0067 and adjusted for 75 degrees is 1.0085.
Alcohol Content at bottling (5/31/09): 4.8%


Here are some pictures: