The most recent adventure was Big Brew Day at Iron Hill Maple Shade NJ, celebrating National Homebrew Day. Ashley joined me and we brewed up a couple of goodies - Very Heffelberry III and a Dunkelweizen. We also had a couple food goodies, Shrimp Boil and Smoked BBQ pork. The shrimp boil was amazing, and will be a feature at gatherings in the future. Not many takers though, so into the cooler it went and I had leftovers for 2 meals. Yummy. I thought the smoked BBQ pork was going to be a bust, but in the end people really liked it. No leftovers there. I smoked it over hickory blocks instead of charcoal, and it was too much smoke. Next time I'll 'season' with the hickory blocks.
The head brewer at Iron Hill did a special pale malt mash for the group, some to use for the Iron Brewer competition, but I opted to use mine for a (not so) pale ale. The gravity was a smidgen low, so I mashed 14 lbs more Pale, & Victory (and maybe a few more?) in my new mash cylinder, but that was a disaster as it basically clogged totally, and I ended up spooning the wet mash into the BIAB bag, and continued on. In the end I might be OK anyway. I split the wort into 2 batches, and hopped with UK Fuggles in 1 and Kohatu in the other. Here's the mash cylinder in the pot before I mashed in. I'm going to try a standard grain crush the next time, and see if I can get it to act more like a mash tun, and sparge with it. I'll see how it goes.
The Kohatu was inspired by Cigar City Brewing Hopped on the High Seas: Kohatu. This is a New Zealand hop that is really good. I can't wait for it to be ready. Since it's not so pale I may have to reclassify it at an IPA. Then I can dry hop it too!
More brew tools discussion to follow.
