Well it had been almost 2 years to the day since I last brewed any beer, and when Ron posted his recipe for a Blue Moon clone based on the original 1995 formula, I knew I just had to try it.
Blue Moon is my wife's go-to beer. She doesn't often drink beer, preferring mixed drinks, but if she's drinking beer 9 times out of 10 it's a Blue Moon. So it didn't take much convincing to get her on board with this endeavor.
Luckily I had most of the ingredients on-hand already, and the few I didn't I ordered. February 19th was set as brew day and everything came together nicely to actually let me brew!
Similar to Ron, I prefer to brew 1 gallon batches for several reasons. Top of them being I don't drink as much beer as I used to (for health reasons) so a gallon is a good amount for me, and being a much smaller batch allows me to brew on the stove top in the comfort of my kitchen.
This was going to be my first try at all-grain "brew-in-a-bag" (BIAB) brewing, which if you've never heard of it, basically means you mash the grains in a muslin type bag and after mashing you simply remove the bag; instead of a standard mash process that involves false bottoms or screens and sparging the grains to recover some of the sugars locked in the grains. There are different schools of thought on the BIAB process and sparging. Some people just let the bag drain naturally, others squeeze it, still others sparge the bag. I decided to go with a hybrid of all three.
Brewing went ok, with a few hiccups. First the bags I had bought for mashing were WAY too small, so I ended up having to use two of them. Because I had packed to much grains into each they expanded quite a bit and a lot of fines made their way into the wort. I was also worried that being bound up in a bag like they were that there wouldn't be enough water flow in and around the grains for proper extraction. So I made sure to stir very often and sort of smash the bags against the side of my kettle to hopefully push the liquid out and replace it with new "fresh" liquid. That seems to have worked ok, but next time I'll get the right size bag.
Second, I miscalculated my strike temperature and it was about 10 degrees too high after adding the grains. Then I overshot (undershot? ) it trying to correct it with cool water and had a hard time getting back up to temp. Most of the mash was done around 146-148 instead of the 154 I was aiming for. It seems to have been ok though, as the original gravity ended up at 1.051 which is close enough to the target of 1.053 for me. It's probable that I'll end up with a slightly drier beer than intended due to more beta-amylase action than alpha-amylase, but we'll see when it's done!
After mashing I moved the grain bags to a large strainer set on top of the kettle to let them drain, and "sparged" with two ladles of 170 degree water, then let it drain and cool for about half an hour at which point it was cool enough for me to touch. I tried squeezing the grain bags to see if I could get any further wort out of it, but only a couple drops came out.
From there it went pretty smooth and into the carboy without any hiccups.
Fermentation is going smoothly, though it wasn't as vigorous as I was expecting. I did have a little issue keeping the temp where I wanted it. Even in the coldest closet in the house it was still running about 72-74 which is right at the upper end of the yeast's range. I tried putting it in the garage but it quickly dropped to the low 50's, which is too low. So it went back in the closet. After the heaviest fermentation activity slowed it settled into about 66-68 which is just fine by me.
This coming weekend will mark 2 weeks in the fermenter, at which point I'll check the gravity reading over a couple days to make sure it's done fermenting and then transfer to bottles. I'll update this thread as I go, I really can't wait to try this.
Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm brewing I like to take the opportunity to drink fine beers and sample different styles. I'd had this Westmalle Trapist Triple in my fridge way too long, so it got the nod.
A very nice beer, and well balanced for being 9.5% abv! In talking with Ron, he sent me an article that includes a recipe for this beer that I may just have to give a try soon. I've never done such a high alcohol beer, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
It wasn't until a couple days after brewing and drinking the triple that I noticed that I had the matching goblet in my stein collection. A missed opportunity for sure!
Thanks for reading along!
Blue Moon is my wife's go-to beer. She doesn't often drink beer, preferring mixed drinks, but if she's drinking beer 9 times out of 10 it's a Blue Moon. So it didn't take much convincing to get her on board with this endeavor.
Luckily I had most of the ingredients on-hand already, and the few I didn't I ordered. February 19th was set as brew day and everything came together nicely to actually let me brew!
Similar to Ron, I prefer to brew 1 gallon batches for several reasons. Top of them being I don't drink as much beer as I used to (for health reasons) so a gallon is a good amount for me, and being a much smaller batch allows me to brew on the stove top in the comfort of my kitchen.
This was going to be my first try at all-grain "brew-in-a-bag" (BIAB) brewing, which if you've never heard of it, basically means you mash the grains in a muslin type bag and after mashing you simply remove the bag; instead of a standard mash process that involves false bottoms or screens and sparging the grains to recover some of the sugars locked in the grains. There are different schools of thought on the BIAB process and sparging. Some people just let the bag drain naturally, others squeeze it, still others sparge the bag. I decided to go with a hybrid of all three.
Brewing went ok, with a few hiccups. First the bags I had bought for mashing were WAY too small, so I ended up having to use two of them. Because I had packed to much grains into each they expanded quite a bit and a lot of fines made their way into the wort. I was also worried that being bound up in a bag like they were that there wouldn't be enough water flow in and around the grains for proper extraction. So I made sure to stir very often and sort of smash the bags against the side of my kettle to hopefully push the liquid out and replace it with new "fresh" liquid. That seems to have worked ok, but next time I'll get the right size bag.
Second, I miscalculated my strike temperature and it was about 10 degrees too high after adding the grains. Then I overshot (undershot? ) it trying to correct it with cool water and had a hard time getting back up to temp. Most of the mash was done around 146-148 instead of the 154 I was aiming for. It seems to have been ok though, as the original gravity ended up at 1.051 which is close enough to the target of 1.053 for me. It's probable that I'll end up with a slightly drier beer than intended due to more beta-amylase action than alpha-amylase, but we'll see when it's done!
After mashing I moved the grain bags to a large strainer set on top of the kettle to let them drain, and "sparged" with two ladles of 170 degree water, then let it drain and cool for about half an hour at which point it was cool enough for me to touch. I tried squeezing the grain bags to see if I could get any further wort out of it, but only a couple drops came out.
From there it went pretty smooth and into the carboy without any hiccups.
Fermentation is going smoothly, though it wasn't as vigorous as I was expecting. I did have a little issue keeping the temp where I wanted it. Even in the coldest closet in the house it was still running about 72-74 which is right at the upper end of the yeast's range. I tried putting it in the garage but it quickly dropped to the low 50's, which is too low. So it went back in the closet. After the heaviest fermentation activity slowed it settled into about 66-68 which is just fine by me.
This coming weekend will mark 2 weeks in the fermenter, at which point I'll check the gravity reading over a couple days to make sure it's done fermenting and then transfer to bottles. I'll update this thread as I go, I really can't wait to try this.
Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm brewing I like to take the opportunity to drink fine beers and sample different styles. I'd had this Westmalle Trapist Triple in my fridge way too long, so it got the nod.
A very nice beer, and well balanced for being 9.5% abv! In talking with Ron, he sent me an article that includes a recipe for this beer that I may just have to give a try soon. I've never done such a high alcohol beer, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
It wasn't until a couple days after brewing and drinking the triple that I noticed that I had the matching goblet in my stein collection. A missed opportunity for sure!
Thanks for reading along!
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