BeerBorg

After 9 long months of not brewing at all I finally got a batch in and will be brewing again this evening. I took a few days off of work and yesterday I dug out all my brewing equipment and gave it all a good cleaning and decided to use the 6 gallon BrewDemon Oatmeal Stout recipe that I had bought a while back to brew a quick batch. It felt good to get back in the swing of it even though it was an extract batch. Honestly it was kind of nice to have such a quick and easy brew day and not having to go through all the usual steps of All Grain even if it is BIAB.

With this BD Oatmeal Stout I decided to reprise an old MrB recipe I had done and had always liked called Eyeopener Sumatra Coffee Stout. When I made this years ago I had added Cocoa and Coffee at bottling time. It turned out great so I will be doing this one again.

Today I will be brewing my Mosquito Chaser IPA using Citra hops in the boil and secondary and vanilla beans in the secondary. Really looking forward to getting my brew on again!

Cheers!

Good on ya! Both sound tasty.
I'm thinking about taking the first week of August off and brewing either 2 days in a row or 2 out of 3 days. It's so damn hot that it's hard to do this but with football season around the corner, I need to be ready.
Gonna do some rye thing, likely a small RyePA and a nice and tasty pale. I have some Golden Promise malt, some Maris Otter and some Swaen malt that has been sitting a while so I'll take advantage of some of that and see how things shake out.

WOOHOO!!!! Glad your able to get back to brewing!!!!

That's GREAT Leigh!!!!!!!!! It's good to see a guy that runs a brewing forum......um....brewing.
Enjoy the second round and let us know how they turn out.

Congrates on getting to brew again! I can't imagine what those 9 months must've been like for you. As for brewing extract batches I see no harm no foul there, its the beer that counts after all. I've no right to complain about the heat, living in New Jersey after all, but the temperatures are sailing well into the upper 90's here for the next week. My pipeline needs replenishing but I don't think I can survive another all grain brewday with the real feel temperature well above 100 degrees. Glad to hear you're back brewing again Leigh!

Woo hoo, back on the horse! Glad you were able to brew again.

Brew on our fearless leader

Hooray for brew day!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well I bought the grain, hops yeast and other ingredients for my Mosquito Chaser IPA but the thermometer outside got up to 99*F with real reel of 106*F and it really hasn't cooled down much at this point so I've decided to hold off to brew until it cools down a little bit. Sunday is still supposed to be hot but not as bad as today so that is my new plan. Stay tuned!

Wow, it's weird how much of the country is like the south but, we live like this 4 months or so of the year and you only have about 20 days of this or am I wrong?
When I gotta brew, I brew but at my age, I feel every bit of it this time of year. 3 years ago I brewed every 3 weeks in the summer, but now I've slowed a bit.

Beer-lord wrote:Wow, it's weird how much of the country is like the south but, we live like this 4 months or so of the year and you only have about 20 days of this or am I wrong?
When I gotta brew, I brew but at my age, I feel every bit of it this time of year. 3 years ago I brewed every 3 weeks in the summer, but now I've slowed a bit.

Our summers here in Michigan are usually pretty hot, upper 80s low 90s are pretty common and with the Great Lakes surrounding us it is usually pretty humid as well.

On a different note, since I have delayed my brew day I was wondering about how I can increase the vanilla in my recipe? Originally I had used 2 vanilla beans in the secondary for 7 days although the beer tasted great there just didn't seem to get enough of the vanilla taste that I wanted to it. This time I thought I would double the amount of beans (4 beans) in the secondary but someone at the LHBS suggested adding some to the primary fermentation once the the wort is at pitching temperature.

So what does the Borg think/suggest?

I did a stout last year with a healthy-fresh vanilla bean and it was mild and had to add a second one after a few days. It definitely weakened over time but quicker than I had thought. I didn't do a secondary (as I recall) and added the second vanilla bean in the keg. It seemed to last longer than the originally added bean in the primary that was added for 5 days before kegging at about 68 degrees.

Very seldom do I secondary anymore. I'd toss in 5 split and scraped beans as primary winds down, 3-4 days. I don't see vanilla being lost during fermentation. Cold crash, keg, carb and enjoy.

Funny, I'm going to be brewing this Sunday and next Sunday, and then taking August off. I've brewed every week so far this year, and I'll pick it up again on Labor Day weekend. I know it's going to be hot, and I'm going to be wiped out, what with my workload, but it's worth it to me.

Hot, cold it doesn't matter to me, but right now it is dealing with all the smoke and ash. The sky is red from the smoke and the fire is 40 miles away, but the wind is blowing it into our valley. Gotta love living in California. Now all we need is an earthquake and a flood to really tie the state together.