when your work is done. you'll want one.

welcome to another Bibby Adventure.

tonight we'll be brewing a 5 gallon batch of beer, more on that later. and we'll be racking another 5 gallon batch into a pin lock keg, with priming sugar. 

get your seat belts on. 

so far i have had 3 Shift beers from the new belgium brewing company. hey, it was a long day.

it is 8:53pm western mountain time. i'm ready to start sanitizing everything. lots of iodine. today is different for me because i've never kegged and brewed on the same day. a lot of the parts are the same, but a lot are different for each activity. the keg has 5 gaskets, 2 valves, and one lid. along with a CO2 tube and a liquid tube. 

8:56 and 2.5 gallons are attempting to acquire a temperature of 150. then i'll steep 0.5 pounds of crystal malt in the water for 30 minutes . this is especially important to note tonight because i'm not following a recipe, i'm going at this batch with a little guidance and a lot of gut. in order to check my methods, tools and techniques, i'm going to attempt basically the same batch in a month or so. good notes will be difficult to maintain, but handy to have. 

i generally don't wear a shirt whilst brewing. its more adventurous that way. 

after 30 minutes of steeping, the grains will come out for Beyonce to enjoy, and the liquid malt extract will go in. the extract is because i don't have a fancy set up that lets me do 10 gallon all-grain batches. not yet. i always put the 6.5 pound tub of extract under hot water to losen it up from the container. that way i don't have to do as much scooping. 

after that i'll go into hi-hop mode. 

1 oz. Motueka* at the start of the boil (begin 60 mins)

1 oz. Motueka at the 10 minute mark

1 oz. Motueka  at the 5 minute mark

1 oz. Motueka at the 0 minute mark (flame out)

then we'll go into the fermentor, sticking with the hops though, i'll use the last oz. to add during the primary fermentation, about 3 days before racking the beer into a secondary fermenting unit. that will really zest this shit up.

but after the flame out, my job is to cool the wort from the ~202 degrees to about 75 degrees. that involves a sink and lots of ice, cold water and patience. then i'll pour from the brew kettle to the sanitized fermenter. when it is close to 70 degrees, i'll add the liquid yeast (WYeast woot woot!!) and then close'er up for about 5 days. then comes the dry hopping and then racking to a keg. a hopefully empty keg. 

9:14 i don't have the strongest burner, so the 2.5 gallons is at 139 degrees. 11 to go. then steeping.

9:17 that didn't take long! the steep begins!

- stable temp at 152.8. i can live with that. the water is now wort. mmmm wort. its like the egg of beer. 

using this time to sanitize the fermentor. 

9:46 still waiting. 1 minute left. i'm also making some delicious ramen noodles at the same time. its a good bet that next month when i make a tweaked version of this brew, i'll also be eating ramen noodles. 

10:09 hop time! begin the boil. ish.

11:46. well. everybody left and the brew is in te basement. so i guess there is nothing to do but wait.

*the Motueka hops are from the Motueka area of New Zealand. my first beer was a new zealand IPA, so i thought i would throw it back there for #13. by the way, that first beer was the best one yet.