CONDITION DEEZ

We're good now - out of the fermenter and into our respective kegs. Breed has a real keg, full setup, very nice actually which he should live motherfucking blog about sometime. I've got the party pig which is not as high quality, obviously, but makes up for it by being the shit. Click the logo and enjoy the most god awful website you've ever seen. Bottled four as well.

We're at roughly 6% alcohol, and taste is superb, must say. No question Misc Alc will be the best batch to date. Too cold / too early / too much of a water shortage / too lazy to brew another batch today, but will get back up on it next weekend hopefully.

Misc Alc to debut a week from wednesday.
HOLLA BACK IN TEN DAY

In the can

We are in the can. yeast fully hydrated hopefully eating away at the delicious goodness we fed to them tonight. 6.5 gallons of what hopefully will turn out to be something nearly indistinguishable from Sierra Nevada (located in Chico, CA)'s Pale Ale. We absolutely fucking nailed our target color and gravity (1.049 for those of you scoring at home). This is a first for us considering that we have heretofore had to throw in a random package of dry extract ("you think this will bring our gravity needs to be?" "fuck it. throw it in"). The perfection of this month's concoction only exacerbating the pain over neglecting to add the clarifying agent at 10 minutes to go in the boil. Oh well. Hazy Sierra tastes just as good as the real thing, I suppose (hope). With any luck, by this time tomorrow we will see an explosion of CO2 pumping out of the blow-off tube in my downstairs closet. Fingers crossed.

Hoppy Hour

So, I think I may have just had a breakthrough with this whole beer brewing/connoisseur-ship/obsession thing that I've been subjected to over the past few months. My specialty in the beer brewing process is the making of hop bags. And by specialty I mean what the boys get me to do so I don't get bored and start complaining. I was making a hop bag earlier and found myself appreciating the smell of the tiny pellets, which was unusual because normally any scent involved in the beer making process makes we want to vomit. Later when I took a sip of a beer, that is apparently very hoppy, I noticed a familiar flavor that I happened to really like. Then it dawned on me that the flavor I was tasting was the same smell I was appreciating earlier. Holy shit! It's the hops! I actually discerned the flavor of hops from a beer and what's more, I LIKED IT! I've always been more of a wine-lover than a beer drinker except for the occasional Miller Lite, but I think I may have just been converted thanks to the hops. Miller Lite, Schmiller Lite.

-Cydne (Guest Blogger)

Managing the hot break

Everyone loves a chaotic hot break except for the person/s responsible for fucking dealing with it - the ones who risk nth degree burns trying to get you drunk.

Seeing as I'm one of those people, i agreed to split the cost of a much larger brewpot so we could:
- keep our skin tone
- brew more per batch

But as it turns out, brewing 7.5 gallons in a 10 gallon pot leaves about the same room as our previous amount per patch/pot volume ratio. Except this time the brewpot is much larger/heavier and is impossible for one person to handle. So we called for EVACUATION OF BREWING AREA and nerves shot up, etc, in anticipation of what could potentially be the worst hot break EVER

Turns out though simply using a spray bottle with cold water to calm down the break as it happens

HOLY FUCK OUT OF NOWHERE WITH 10 MINUTES TO GO JUST DEALT WITH SPILL OVER ON A MINII BREAK WTF

jesus

Misc Alc Pale Ale - Ingredients List

grains:
11.5 lb American Pale Malt 2 Row
1 lb Caramel malt

hops:
.4oz Magnum alpha 14% at 60 min
.5oz Pearle alpha 5.7% at 30 min
1oz Cascade alpha 7.4% at 10 min
2oz Cascade alpha 4.9% at 0 min

Yeast:
California Ale by White Labs

Water:
10 gallons deer park

Panty Hose:
1 pack

Cost:
$28

Intended Yield:
4 gallons in br33ts keg
2.5 gallons in party pig

30 minutes in, twice screwed

new brewpot so to avoid hot break madness. this one a 40qt with valve and an added temperature gauge, which we obviously need.

First step in the process is to boil ~4gallons of water to steep our grains. Important the water is at 165 degrees. Unfortunately we:
- used the tube which closes the spout for the mash tun as the tube to get the water from the brewpot into the tun (tough to follow, but basically we were pouring water into a tub, and neglected to realize tub had an open spout)
- didnt think to notice the temperature gauge is at the 3 gallon or so water line, so once water fell below that, temp gauge showed a drastic decrease which we attriburted to who the fuck knows, and just increased the propane. Once we realized, we check the temp with another thermometer, and water, of course, was near boiling at 200. Fortunately we stopped the flow once we saw something was wrong. Unfortunately, about half the water already in the grain.

the result will still be golden

Picture is said brewpot, courtesy of profit sharing despite recession worries, etc

IT'S GAMEDAY

OK motherfuckers time for another brew. We slacked off the liveblogging for the 27 points but don't think that means it isn't better than your favorite beer. Carbonation / taste / aroma / outstanding. clarity not the greatest but best thus far. Beerstore dood recommended pellets for clarity which we'll use in this batch to be named:

Misc Alc Pale Ale
A sierra nevada pale ale clone recipe created by some dood on the internet and tweaked to correction by head brewmaster at sierra himself. Or, more plausibly, tweaked by some middle aged dood eating stale doritos in his pj's posting to the brewboard claiming to be head brewmaster at sierra.

Checklist:
hops? check. grains? check. water? check. full propane tank? hopefully. Anopther $300 spent at brewstore for more equipment? check. Hangover? check.