first markham brew day 2007

after taking a few months off, the first markham brew day of 2007 happened last weekend. on deck for the day was a big batch of hopocalypse, so eric and i could finally each have a keg to enjoy, and a belgian pale ale. the belgian pale would be something we'd never tried, and would give us a yeast cake to use on a bigger belgian beer. initial talk was to do a quad/belgian strong dark ale, but now it looks like we might split it and do this and a tripel. stay tuned for news on that...

start of the brew day. eric is cleaning up some gear before we get going.

there's me, keeping the barley crusher going and tearing up the grain. have i mentioned how much this thing kicks ass?

warming up the strike water. small pot for the 5gal belgian pale, larger pot for the ipa.

still working on the ipa grain.

the grain bill for the belgian pale.

there's eric doughing in the hopocalypse.

first beer of the day, moyland's hopsickle imperial ale. "triple hoppy".

both batches sparging. hopocalypse in the red cooler and the belgian pale in the bucket.

lunch is served. bbq burgers with cheddar and/or blue.

but before lunch i had to tend to the sparge.

burgers and doritos. mmmmmmm. jenn always hooks us up with a great lunch. we also had some tasty chocolate chip banana nut muffins early in the day.

eric likes his burger.

me too!

the belgian pale boiling. it started getting this wacky film on top. not the typical break (which we had already skimmed before adding hops), this was something different.

eric skimming the scum and first wort hops from the ipa. chunky!

the flameout addition for the ipa was 2oz of leaf amarillo. looks tasty.

it's become a tradition that during the transfer to the fermenter we always listen to some iron maiden. start things off with number of the beast, then move on to a few of the other tracks i have. really need to get more...

the final lineup from the brew day and some evening tasting (left to right):

• central waters brewers reserve bourbon cherry stout
• central waters brewers reserve bourbon barrel stout
• kuhnhenn extraneous ale
• homebrewed christmas ale from a fellow homebrewer
• moyland's hopsickle
• moyland's moylander
• north coast old rasputin x
• another homebrew
• duck rabbit rabid duck imperial stout
• north coast old rasputin

another great brew day!

Posted by grub at May 23, 2007 10:21 AM