Saturday, June 11, 2011

First brew and thoughts

This will be infinitely less detailed then most of my posts but my first brewday merited a look back post. It's been 3 months since my first brew day. Derek and I brewed a robust porter kit from brewer's best. He brought his brewing stuff over. We brewed the kit in a hurry.

Lesson #1: Do not hurry.

The beer was fine in the end, a bit bland, but it was a kit. It produced a drinkable beer. We added some bourbon soaked chips to it. The heavy toast American chips gave it a bit of a smokey wood flavor; something that in time we'll explore more I am sure.

The fact that it turned out alright despite my inability to prepare properly is amazing at this point. I'll monitor it in the future but right now I have 2 cases of slightly oaked porter. Not bad.

Introduction

As the title of my blog suggests I brew in a small place. I created this blog as a dual purpose diary: first it’s a way for me to keep track of what I’ve done, my thoughts and what I’ve learned; second to create a blog that might be helpful in the future to other people just starting out in the brew game.  In my future posts I will be posting my setup, processes, recipes, reviews of beers I’ve brewed, and general info on my experiences. Thanks for reading my blog, please leave comments, God bless.