Where’d My ManGo Wheat Checklist

If you read Big Brew Day ... Where'd My ManGo Wheat (Batch 391), you know that the SheppyBrew Beer Model (aka my wife) brewed with me last Saturday. 

She actually brews with me 3 or 4 times a year. I jokingly say that I make her brew with me so that I'll stay out of jail when the authorities find out I brew more than 100 gallons of beer in a year.

You see, according to federal law:

The production of beer per household, without payment of tax, for personal or family use may not exceed:
100 gallons per calendar year if there is only one adult residing in the household or
200 gallons per calendar year if there are two or more adults residing in the household

By the letter of the law, she doesn't actually have to brew to allow our household 200 gallons of beer, but it is fun for me to pretend that I need her to stay out of jail.

Honestly, I don't think the TTB (or whoever is responsible for enforcing this law) actually cares one way or another as long as I don't try to sell my beer, so it probably doesn't matter at all.

Anyway ... whenever we brew together, the Beer Model has me print out a "Brew Sheet" from BeerSmith, and the sheet always confuses her. Honestly, I don't understand why she wants it at all since I have to interpret it for her anyway. I could just do this from looking at the website recipe page as I do when I brew by myself.

So, for Where'd My ManGo Wheat (Batch 391), I took the time to make a simplified checklist for her. 

And ... I basically had her follow the list to see how it went.

Where’d My ManGo Wheat Checklist

Prepare Water

·         8 gallons Denver Water

·         Add Minerals
4g Calcium Chloride

         2g Epsom Salt

         1g Gypsum

·         Heat to 150°F 

·         Attach Pump to Foundry

Prepare Equipment and Ingredients

·         Mash Paddle

·         Boil Spoon

·         0.5 oz Magnum

·         1 tablet whirlfloc

·         Hydrate 1 pack SafAle S-04

·         Refractometer

·         Clean / Sanitize FerMonster and Airlock

·         Assemble wort chiller and hoses

Mash

·         At 150°F, mash in all grains inside the grain bag 

·         Optional … rice hulls

·         Break up all doughballs

·         Turn on recirculation pump and confirm flow is right

·         Mash 40-55 minutes at 150°F 

·         Raise to 156°F for 20 minutes 

·         Lift Pipe and Drain grains

·         Heat wort to 200°F on the way to boil 

·         Measure pre‑boil gravity
Target: 1.046 

Target volume: 6.6 gallons 

·         Adjust gravity / volume as desired

Boil

·         Add .5 oz Magnum at start of boil

·         Set 60 minute boil timer

·         At 15 minutes left: add whirlfloc

·         At 5 minutes left: place wort chiller + boil spoon into kettle 

·         Run pump to sanitize transfer lines

·         0 minutes:

Turn off heat
Turn on cold water to chiller

·         Take OG sample

Finish up brew day

·         Measure OG (target = 1.051)

·         Chill wort to ~60°F 

·         Pump wort into FerMonster (target = 5.5 gallons)

·         Move FerMonster to basement; Cool with frozen bottles

·         Pitch yeast

·         Clean brewing equipment

Fermentation / Keg

·         Keep fermentation around 65°F for first couple days 

·         Then allow to rise to basement ambient 

·         After 10 days: rack onto mango purée 

·         After 4 days: keg with mango flavoring + Campden tablet 

·         Measure FG and calculate ABV

So ... she took this list and went step-by-step. The issue I had with this is there was no parallel processes she did all the "Prepare Equipment and Ingredients" steps before starting the mash. Obviously, she could have started the mash (or had me do it) and done those "Prepare Equipment and Ingredients" steps while waiting for the mash to finish.

As I mentioned in Big Brew Day ... Where'd My ManGo Wheat (Batch 391), it also drove me crazy how she hydrated the yeast. She obviously had either never seen me do it or didn't remember seeing me do it before. 

But we got through the brew day fine. And, she wasn't nearly as confused as she was with the "Standard" brew sheet.

So, next time we brew together, I'll probably put together another similar list. I'll just organize it differently, and may add more detail on the hydrate yeast step.

As always, stay tuned on the regular SheppyBrew Channels to see what is happening with beer, barbeque, biking and other things in my life: SheppyBrew's Facebook Page; Sheppy's Twitter Feed; SheppyBrew's Instagram Page; and SheppyBrew's Website.

Big Brew Day ... Where'd My ManGo Wheat (Batch 391)

It was the American Homebrew Association's annual Big Brew Day this past Saturday.

If you follow along on this blog, you may remember that Big Brew Day is quite often a day that the Beer Model and I brew with one or more our homebrewing friends "Du" and "Doc".

But, this year the date sort of snuck up on us all and we didn't make plans for a get-together.

However ... the Beer Model and I had ordered and even picked up ingredients for a recipe that she was wanting us to brew ...

And ... so we decided to do it on Big Brew Day ... 

Where'd My ManGo Wheat

May Update on 2026 Fitness Goals

As you know if you follow this blog, I generally give a monthly update on fitness / Strava goals. I guess we can say that it is another level of accountability to share these publicly.

Plus, from time to time I'll look at older updates just to see where I was way-back-when.

In previous years, my goals have been mostly around cycling, but starting this year, I've started running as well.

If you're interested, I always track these workouts on Strava. 

So far, I'm tracking pretty well to my 2026 Fitness goals.

My 2026 Fitness / Activity Goals are:

Chelsea Dagger Pre-Prohibition Lager (Batch 390)

I'm not brewing very much this year. As I've discussed, I'm on track to brew the least amount of homebrew for the year ever.

By a bunch.

But, I did brew a batch of beer this past Sunday.

Hopefully, I'll get another batch of beer in on Big Brew Day, which is coming up this Saturday.

So ... maybe I'll catch up some.

Even if I do, I don't anticipate catching up enough to get over that 100 gallon homebrewing limit.

Regardless, I got up early Sunday morning to start up the Anvil Foundry and brewed ....

Chelsea Dagger Pre-Prohibition Lager

B is for Bent Barley Brewing Company

As you know if you read A to Z Denver Breweries Round 6, we finished up our alphabet exploration of Denver-area breweries for the 6th time.

You also know we were not sure how to progress with this series of posts. Or ... should we even continue on at all.

The Colorado Brewery Map & List still has quite a few breweries left for us to visit, but there are enough challenging letters that we probably won't be able to fill them all in.

As it turns out, the first few letters fall in place pretty well, so we decided to go ahead and proceed with the beginning of the alphabet.

We don't know how to handle letters we cannot find a brewery for, but that is a problem to address another day.

In the meantime ... 

B is for Bent Barley Brewing Company

A is for Alley Brews Brewery & Coffee Shop

As you know if you read A to Z Denver Breweries Round 6, we finished up our alphabet exploration of Denver-area breweries for the 6th time.

You also know we were not sure how to progress with this series of posts. Or ... should we even continue on at all.

The Colorado Brewery Map & List still has quite a few breweries left for us to visit, but there are enough challenging letters that we probably won't be able to fill them all in.

As it turns out, the first few letters fall in place pretty well, so we decided to go ahead and proceed with the beginning of the alphabet.

We don't know how to handle letters we cannot find a brewery for, but that is a problem to address another day.

In the meantime ... 

A is for Alley Brews Brewery & Coffee Shop

Tengu vs. Samurai®

One of the beers I have on tap right now is "Whisper of the Tengu" Rice Lager.

"A rice lager brewed with reverence and restraint. Whisper of the Tengu is not a beer that shouts—it listens. It’s subtle, sharp, and quietly powerful, honoring the spirit of the mountain trickster with every clean, deliberate note. Ideal for quiet reflection, shared toasts, or moonlit mischief."

This is the first rice lager I've ever brewed (at least as far as I remember), and I think it turned out fantastic.

Rice lagers seem to have jumped in popularity somewhat recently, and I see them much more at commercial breweries than I did 5 and certainly more than 10 years ago.

I thought it would be fun to pick up a Rice Lager from a local brewery and compare it with Tengu.

So, I bought some of Great Divide's Samurai and this past Sunday I compared them side-by-side.