First State Brewers' Blog

Tonight was a beer maintenance night... lots of sanitizing and racking.... with more still left to do. I kegged my Horizon Bitter, brewed several weeks ago with club member Mike Castagno... he's probably got it in bottles or kegs by now.... one of us is sure to bring it to an upcoming meeting. In addition to that, I racked my Amarillo Assault to secondaries and dry-hopped it with 4oz of Amarillo - 2oz per carboy. That's in addition to the 7oz I used to brew it... 11oz total for 10 gallons. I tried to keep the bitterness around 50 IBU, so it shouldn't be overwhelmingly bitter - but I'm hoping that the amarillo taste and aroma will just knock you out of your shoes. The mango wit should be moved to a secondary and polluted with the mango puree sometime this weekend... probably Saturday. No brew planned for this weekend - I want a little downtime. The next 4 brews wil probablyl be:

• Saison du Sevier (batch #2)
• Nasty Habit Abbey Dubbel
• Peated Scottish
• Clan Morrison Scotch Ale

Been also looking around online alot at data acquisition boards and various sensors. I'm slowly coming to realize that my dream home brewery will have to happen in stages - I'll probably implement a control panel that allows manual control of things and do that first, then worry about integrating a computer control system for the mash tun and liquor tank somewhere down the line, using the manual board as a potential "override" system if need be. Point is that yeah, it should be cool - but it has to brew good beer first. Best way to do that is to use my own skills to work things out first, then worry about adding a layer of complexity on top... Kind of a bummer b/c I kinda want to take it all on at once... but that's just not practical.