Friday!??! Yes Friday.
As I mentioned on Gnomeberry Hollow Cherry Porter (Batch 382), my homebrew inventory is pretty low right now, and I potentially might be hosting a brew day on the 8th of November.
Homebrewers tend to drink beer when they get together, and need a decent selection.
So ... just in case, I thought I'd better get at least one more batch of beer in that would be ready to serve in early November.
I actually THINK I'll be heading over to Doc's Brewery, but we have not finalized plans, and it is better to be safe than sorry.
So ... Friday I decided to do a quick "Short and Shoddy" type brew and brewed:
Generally, my brew days can take 5 or 6 hours. The idea around "Short and Shoddy" is to cut steps short to get a brew day in around 2 to 2.5 hours (ideally even less, but this is difficult with a 120 volt Foundry)
Anyway, I actually got started the day before by making a starter. I had a couple packs of "expired" T-58 yeast. I don't worry as much about expiration dates on dry yeast, but these packs were significantly past the suggested date. I figured that worst-case, the starter wouldn't get going and I would choose a different yeast for the brew.
But, the yeast started up just fine.
I also did an over-night mash so that Friday morning that step would be done. I guess technically, this makes the brew "day" longer, but having the mash working overnight while I'm sleeping means I don't really have to spend time on it.
So ... I was up around 5:30, and turned up the temperature on the Foundry at about 5:35 am. I turned on the pump to recirculate about 10 minutes.
Then, I pulled the malt pipe out to drain and turned up the temperature to boiling.
Of course, the 120 volt Foundry doesn't heat as fast as the 240 volt would, so it takes quite awhile to heat from mash temperature to boiling.
But, I can multi-task. I got my fermenter cleaned and sanitized and my chilling hoses etc ready during this time.
I also added First-wort hops.
The wort was at 190 at 6:30 and 195 at 6:35. I was able to start the boil timer at 6:40 for a short 30 minute boil.
The boil went well. Since my only hops were FWH ... the only boil addition I had to make was a whirlflock tablet.
The boil ended at 7:10am. My OG measured at 1.048, which is a couple points higher than planned.
One nice thing about Belgian yeast is that I don't need to get the wort quite as cold as I would for most yeasts.
Once I got the wort chilled to below 80, I started pumping it into the fermenter. Apparently, something was slowing down the pump, but it was going enough that I just let it go.
The beer and yeast was in the fermenter by 7:35, and I had the fermenter in the basement by 7:40.
I'm calling this a 2:05 hour brew day.
Apparently, I didn't have to worry about the "expired" yeast, because the fermenter was bubbling before 9am.
I expect I'll let this ferment for about a week and have it in the keg very soon. I'm sure I'll enjoy drinking this beer before the 2nd weekend of November.
Stay tuned .. and you will probably find out.
And ... as always ...keep an eye 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.
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