Maroon Monsoon - Re-brew

With this batch I wanted to attempt to recreate my first all grain batch, an irish red that turned out great, except for the part where I over carbonated it in the keg. I really liked the combination of flavors in this recipe. The maris otter malt gives the beer a slightly nutty characteristic which blends well with the caramel, honey and smokey characteristics of the other malts. If all goes well this beer should resemble honey nut cheerios, and is recommended as a part of a balanced breakfast...


Grist
8.5 lbs of Maris Otter
1.5 lbs of Crystal 20L
0.25 lbs of Honey Malt

0.125 lbs of Roasted Barley

Extract
none


Hops in the Boil
0.5oz Cascade for 60 Minutes
0.5oz Cascade for 40 Minutes

0.5oz Cascade for 20 Minutes

0.5oz Cascade for 5 Minutes


Yeast
White Labs - Irish Ale (WLP001)


Dry Hopping
1oz Cascade


Additional Ingredients
Whirlfloc


The only change that I made on the previous recipe is that I added an ounce of cascade hops that I will dry hop for a week with. 

Brew Day Upgrade - Brew Pot & Hop Blocker

I have been attempting to slowly grow my equipment from the basic kit to a professional home brewer one step at a time. My last upgrade included a Mash Lauter Tun for my first all grain batch, and now it is time to upgrade to a 20 gallon Blichmann Engineering Boilermaker brew pot with a hop blocker. The brew pot has a built in ball valve drain, thermometer and volume level guage. The pot took a little assembly, but it only took 2 wrenches and about 5 minutes to add the thermometer. I still need to get an adapter for the drain to fit tubing, but that will just take a $3 trip to lowes.

The hop blocker fits inside the drain, and will hopefully stop the majority of the hops from the boil from getting into the primary fermenter. I will be brewing a batch of maroon monsoon soon, and I will let y'all know how well it works. 

Schwarzwasser - Racking into Secondary

The schwarzwasser fermentation began almost instantaneously, but it took nearly 2 weeks  to slow down, and another 4 days to stop. With a fermentation that takes that long I like to get the beer off of the trub, and into a secondary. 

If beer sits on the trub for too long it can generate off flavors, but if moved into a secondary then there is a greater chance that the beer gets oxidized. I keep my beer cold enough, and my friends help me drink it fast enough that oxidation isn't an issue, so into the second carboy it goes with the ounce of cascade hops that I am dry hopping the schwarzwasser with.

Oh schwarzwasser keep on rollin', Mississippi moon won't you keep on shinin' on me...