My First mild.

Two nights ago I brewed a batch of what I hope will be a Mild beer. I used 6.6 pounds of light LME. I am going to have to edit this post when I get home to tell you the exact hop and yeast I used. I used 1/2 lb of black patent barley seeped in 1 1/2 gallons of water at about 155 for half an hour. I then added the LME and Another gallon of water, brought that to a boil added the hops and let that boil for 45 min. I then added the yeast I stared that morning aerated it and moved it to the fermented. I am very excited about this batch I love drinking beer but I have often wished I could have more without getting tipsy or out right drunk. If this works well I will be making a lot of mild beers.

Late night easy stout

Just started fermenting a stout batch tonight. Went to my local home brew store and noticed that there where 2 cans of Coopers hoped stout malt extract and I put them in my cart ( well my wife noticed so it's all her fault :) ) I wanted I milder beer so I made a 7 gallon batch. I added 1 cup of powdered chocolate to the batch for some extra flavor. I just used the yeast the came with the stout kit but I used both packs. I am hoping this makes an easy drinking beer while I am waiting for my lager to be done.

Pilsner Lager

My wife and I spent the Christmas holiday with her sister's family in upstate New York. My Brother in law makes his own wine and told me about Hammersmith Home brew supplies ( Hammersmithhomebrew.com ). When he told me they also sold a good selection of beer making ingredients and equipment I decided to drive by and check it out. Joseph Shunk, the proprietor was a pleasure to deal with and very helpful. He puts together ingredient kits from high quality items that would normally be bought a la cart. Being a bit nervous about making a larger I was happy that he had a pilsner lager kit. The kit came with 6.6 lab of extra ligh malt extract from Northwestern Extract co. 2oz of Hallertau hops for boiling and 1/2 oz Tettnang finishing hops. a dry lager yeast and some dextrose (corn sugar) for bottling.

I started off by boiling 2 gallons of water and then removing the brew kettle from the heat. I then put the malt extract in the kettle and brought it back to a boil. once it was boiling I added the Hallertau hops and then let it boil for 40 min. I then added the Tettnag hops and let it boil for 5 min. I had three gallons of cold purified water in the fermenter and I added the contents of the kettle to this. I had proofed the yeast hours before and I added that to the fermenter as well. This was all done yesterday and I woke this morning to the happy sight of a bubbling water lock :) I will update with more news later.

The Beginning,

I have been home brewing beer for a few months now and I getting more and more into it. I am starting this blog as way to keep track of the recipes that I use what I think of the results and maybe a way to bounce ideas off of others in the home brew community. I started my home brewing like most have these days, with a Mr. Beer kit. I found that I enjoyed the fresh natural taste of the beer so much that most store bought beers had lost there appeal to me ( Dogfish, Sierra Nevada, and a few other micro's being a big exception to this). Now I find myself fermenting my third 5 gallon batch of extract (my first lager), and thinking this is a hobby I am going to be keeping. With that in mind I better start keeping track of what I make, how I made it, and how I liked the results. So here goes nothing.... or everything :)