I've been pretty busy with my #GCCUSA and have not brewed in awhile. My last brew day (before this one) was on August 4th.
This year, I'm actually tracking to finish the year with less than 90 gallons brewed, which would be the least amount since 2014.
Luckily, I have not been drinking a whole lot of homebrew compared to previous years either, and I am fine on my beer inventory.
But, I did kill a keg of Summer Lovin' fairly recently and thought I'd like to brew a beer to give me a little buffer.
So ... I got a yeast starter going a couple days ago, and I decided to brew a rare workday-brew-day yesterday.
I basically had the water ready to go around 8:30 and was mashed-in around 8:50.
One nice thing about brewing beer is that most of the time is spent waiting for things to finish, so it is easy to multi-task.
I did a pretty long mash, and wasn't draining the wort until 10:40 or so.
My pre-boil gravity and volume was actually high this time, which is unusual over my past few brew days.
I had almost 7 gallons (expected 6.0) at a gravity of 1.050 (expected 1.048). I diluted with just about a quart of water.
The boil started around 11:20, and I got everything added at the right times. With a one-hour boil, the boil was done around 12:20.
So, most of the time consuming work happened during my "lunch hour".
The chilling took quite awhile. I probably should have gotten out the pond pump and circulated ice water to help get lower, but I ended up just taking extra time.
I ended up racking once the wort was at 70 degrees, which was at around 1pm or so. I had the wort in the basement by 1:15 and the cooling pump going around 1:20.
My first Tilt reading said 1.054 at 69 degrees.
I let the cooling pump work a few hours before pitching the yeast. It was actually 3:45 pm and the controller read 57 while the Tilt read 58 degrees.
I'll let this ferment at "cold" temperatures a few days, and then disconnect the cooling, letting the beer raise to room temperature.
I should be drinking this by early October.
The name "1519 Barker" comes from the address of a house I lived in while attending Bradley University (back in the 1990's).
We used to throw parties in this house where we charged people per cup. We had a kegerator in our basement where we served Natty Light. We had a "secret" keg of Michelob (not the absolutely awful "Ultra" beer of recent years)
And so ... we basically got to drink good beer for free, thanks to the people paying to drink the cheap beer.
Anyway, I have no idea how close this Exportbier will approximate the "premium" Michelob of my past, but I am really looking forward to drinking this beer.
I'm sure I'll love it.
Stay tuned on this blog, and you'll probably find out what I think of the beer.
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