A beautiful day for a brew

Yes I know it has been a long time.  I moved from my last place into a small third floor apartment.  It was hot during the summer so I waited till it got cold out so I can ferment without problems or extra equipment.  So now I'm back and hopefully often.

Paul milling the grain

Today was my first venture into all grain brewing.  I've seen plenty of videos and done a lot of reading on the subject.  Yet I still wasn't comfortable in doing it by myself first.  Plus I also don't have all the necessary equipment.  Luckily a good friend and fellow home brewer, Paul Ascher has both the experience and equipment.  So I went over to his house today for a brew.  As you can see from the short video, we couldn't have picked a more beautiful day.

We decided on an Imperial IPA.  Here's the recipe.

30# Pale Malt (Bris)
1# 45 Cristal Malt
1# 20 Cristal Malt
3oz Samcoe Hops A:14.1 B:3.8
2oz Centennial Hops A:10.3 B:3.9
1 vial of pacific ale yeast

We mashed the grains for one hour at 158 degrees.  Then we sparged the grains at170 degrees.

Watching the sparge

The Samcoe was added at the start of the boil.  Then one ounce of Centennial was added at the 30 minute mark and one at the 15 minute mark.

The boil

Up until today, everything I've done has been a partial grain, partial extract brew.  With that, you use extract for a majority of your flavoring and sugars and boil with a small amount of grains to add that freshness to your beer.  With all grain, since all of your flavor and sugars come from grain, the beer is fresher.  Also it is cheaper to brew.  Although it does take a little more time, some extra equipment, and more space.  It was fun though and I plan to do it again.