Remember that I am not allowed to use electronics on Sundays during Lent? If not, you feel free to refresh your memory by looking at Lent 2014. Other than not having any brew-day pictures that I would have posted to the SheppyBrew Facebook Page and that I could have put on this page, turns out I didn't really need electronics to brew.
The beer that I brewed is T.R.A.S.H. Mexican Lager. There is a bit of a story behind the name, which is on the SheppyBrew Website, and I won't repeat here. If you want to know the story and/or see the recipe, go check it out:
I didn't get started as early as most brew days, but did get things started before church.
My strike water temperature started out a little high. Usually, I would have used my handy-dandy Beer Smith Lite phone app to calculate how much water to add to bring it down. This time, though, I estimated. My estimation turned out perfect, and the mash started out right at 148 (exactly what my recipe planned for).
It was a long mash as I left with the family to go to church.
When I got back, I sparged and collected the wort. The pre-boil gravity was right on.
The boil went as planned. The gravity was a few points at the end, but I simply added about half a gallon to the wort, bringing it right to 1.049 (again without using my phone's calculator for the exactly volume).
After the boil, I cooled the wort into the 60s with a wort chiller and then racked the it into my smaller carboy. I placed the smaller carboy into a gott cooler with ice for an hour or so, which brought the wort down below 50.
Then, I racked that into my bigger carboy, leaving behind a bit more brewing "gunk", and ended up with a little more than 5 gallons at about 48 degrees into which I pitched my starter of White Labs #WLP940, Mexican Lager Yeast.
Last night, I actually took the carboy out of the water to let the beer warm up to ale temperatures for about a week. I know traditional lager brewers will probably gasp in shock and horror that I would do such a thing, but it is the SheppyBrew process for fermenting lagers. I keep it cold for the first week or so and then let it heat up to clean up any yeast by-products. It may not be "traditional", but I have won a first-place on a lager using this method, so I think it does ok.
Anyway ... I'll let this beer sit a few days and take a gravity reading. If you follow the SheppyBrew Facebook page, you'll probably see updates on how it turns out.
Go Blackhawks.
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