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November 12, 2007

more markham madness

nov 10th saw another markham brew day. on the docket for the day were a batch of hopocalypse for josh, the winner of my yearly beer raffle for our october charity drive at work, and a jamaican export stout for eric and jan. the JES is an export stout that eric created using jamaican cane sugar.

on with the photos!

dessert on friday night. jan hit a belgian shop near his place and brought over a selection of excellent stuff. we paired this with a bottle of ommegang chocolate indulgence. delicious!

saturday morning. doughing in hopocalypse. scott looking on from outside the garage, josh in the haze of steam, and eric and i pouring in the strike water.

me stirring up the mash. in the second you can see eric enjoying a cinnamon bun, one part of the great morning snacks jenn whipped up for us.

jan enjoying some of jenn's home made granola with some yogurt.

the tasty looking hopocalypse mash.

eric and scott talking.

jan still working on his granola.

josh taking a turn stirring up his hopocalypse mash and me checking its temperature.

at this point i believe we were raising the temperature of the hopocalypse up to mash out (168-170F). jan was helping monitor the temperature while i stirred. gotta keep stirring to insure you don't scorch it.

josh taking a moment to check out designing great beers by ray daniels. this is the go-to book for most american and english styles.

the remains of jenn's great mornign snacks. raspberries, cinnamon buns, and home made granola.

here we had eric working on raising the temp for the stout, with scott in the background. check out the sweet wind screen, one of two he made for us. nice thick steel with a hinge in the middle so that it can wrap around the burner and fold up for easy storage. thanks scott!

eric, horns.

here i was grabbing a sample so that i could verify we had full starch conversion. a drop of iodine will turn black if there's still starch present. as always, we were in the clear.

another look at the wind screen. josh and eric appreciating the fine aroma of the stout mash.

collecting the hopocalypse. you can see the simcoe first wort hops that went in as soon as we started collecting.

me adding in the last of the first pot of sparge water...

...and refilling it so we'd have enough for the stout. eric is carrying the second pot of sparge water into the garage. i still need to pick up another keggle or two, so we end up doing this multi-pot thing for sparging. not a big deal though, just takes a little bit of planning.

eric was transferring the mash from the keggle to the cooler tun. in the first photo he's grabbing a scoop of sparge water. we usually do this and use it to rinse the grains that are stuck to the sides of the keggle down to the bottom, insuring that we don't leave anything behind. the second photo shows him scooping the last of the mash from the bottom of the keggle.

jan grabbing the third pot of sparge water.

due to pot shortage, we were using our grain bucket for vorlauf. here you can see eric directing the flow against the side of the bucket. with really dark beers, it's quite difficult to see when the runoff is 'clear'. if you let it run in a very thin layer over the bottom of a nice shiny pot or the side of a bright white pail it's easy to know when things are settled and it's time to start collecting the runoff. be sure to watch it for a minute or two, just to be sure nothing is slipping through.

having just laid out the foil on top of the mash eric was checking on things.

jan and eric working on recirculating the vorlauf.

here i was showing josh the ins and outs of promash and how handy it is.

yep, the runoff smelled just as good as the mash.

more vorlauf.

jan telling a story, probably about his recent trip to california.

...where he got us each a sweet pliny the elder hat. i was in need of a new hat, and this one is great!

eric adding the last of the vorlauf. for the stout.

mmm, looks delicious...

...but not as delicious as the sweet lunch spread jenn put together. some tasty soup and a great assortment of bread, crackers, cheese, and fruit.

a closeup on my soup and the glass of great divide titan ipa that eric picked up in buffalo. also pictured are my refractometer, designing great beers, and a pound of amarillo.

me, beer. mmmm.

me talking with scott while eric washes out the hydrometer + tube.

checking the gravity of the runoff on the stout. still looking good.

eric with his soup. jan punching.

the hopocalypse chilling and the stout boiling.

scott.

josh.

here the hopocalypse was going into the fermenter and eric was keeping an eye on it while i figured out the efficiency and whether or not we'd dillute it to reduce the gravity. i ended up adding a little water since the gravity came out a bit high. jan punching again.

eric

josh, eric, and i talking at the end of the hopocalypse transfer.

jan

"i love you man". "no, i love you man".

eric

eric giving the horns in approval of the collection of the stout.

the brew day done, it was time for a little guitar hero...

...and a little later some euchre and beer. here we were sampling and reviewing some tasty oscar blues ten fidy. horns all around.

a nice fire in the fireplace.




















a bunch of us being goofy and/or reviewing.

another successful brew day.

Posted by grub at November 12, 2007 7:04 PM

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