First State Brewers' Blog

Its been a long week, both at work and otherwise. I am so glad its the weekend. And its also been a really long day - Aside from the 8 hour workday, I had an 8 hour brew day today. Don't ask why... let's just say that I've got to make sure I never do another 90 minute mash and almost 2 hour boil. But I've got some porter in the carboy, yeast is pitched, and hopefully I will be fermenting when I wake up tomorrow.

I was shooting for a gravity of 1.062, but I ended up with 1.074 - apparently I'm more efficient than the anticipated 75% (nearly 82%). Speaking of gravities - I got a really cool new toy for my b-day from Donna's folks - a refractometer w/ ATC. I did some spot checks against the hydrometer I've been using for a year now, and its in agreement - but with more accuracy. Its also not as big a pain to use (only takes a couple drops). Very very cool.



I guess for this meeting at our place on May 20 I'll have plenty of new toys to show off to folks since the last - My 3 faucet tower, my counter-pressure bottle filler, the refractometer, my AG system - Now if only people would come. The past 2 meetings at my house, only about 4 people showed up. I can only hope this one will be better attended... consider it a b-day wish.