#2: Amber Ale

Recipe: 
Block Party Amber Ale Kit from Northern Brewer (adjusted for grain availability from local shop)

Grains:
6 lbs Gold malt syrup
0.5 lbs Crystal Malt
0.125 lbs Briess
0.125 lbs Light Roasted Barley

Hops:
1 oz Willamette (60 min)

Yeast:
Safale S-04 dry yeast

Priming Sugar:
5 oz corn sugar

Batch Size/Yield:
5 gal/4.5 gal (48 12-oz bottles) (we got better at controlling trub and other volume loss)

Original Gravity:
1.041

Final Gravity:
1.011

Alcohol Content:
3.9%

Primary Fermentation/Time:
5 gal plastic fermenting bucket/15 days

Conditioning Time:
14 days

Tasting Notes:
This is a very drinkable beer..we went through seven of them on the first night we tasted it! It still has a barely noticeable sour taste, which our oatmeal stout had too. Not sure if it's the yeast, or our sanitation, or other contaminant. Good amber color, maybe a little dark due to the grain substitutions we made. Perfectly balanced sweetness/maltiness/hoppiness. Not a huge "wow" flavor, but perfect for someone who wants a smooth, clean beer. We are absolutely going to share this with more people.

I think we might start brewing in 22-oz bottles to fill up a pint glass!

Next Up:
Honey Weizen

#1: Oatmeal Stout

Recipe: 
Oatmeal Stout Extract Beer Kit from Midwest Supplies

Grains:
6 lbs Dark LME
8 oz Rolled Oats
4 oz Chocolate Malt
4 oz Roasted Barley

Hops:
1 oz Fuggles (60 min)

Yeast:
Safale S-04 dry yeast

Priming Sugar:
5 oz corn sugar

Batch Size/Yield:
5 gal/3.5 gal (38 12-oz bottles)

Original Gravity:
NR (forgot to measure it - it was our first batch, after all!)

Final Gravity:
1.011

Alcohol Content:
Unknown (est. 3.9%)

Primary Fermentation/Time:
5 gal plastic fermenting bucket/21 days (we weren't sure it had fermented, and we got busy, so it went an extra week past the recipe)

Conditioning Time:
14 days

Tasting Notes:
A little on the light-tasting side for a stout, it still had a great dark color and a balanced malty/bitterness. Not too sweet, good sense of oatmeal. I'm not sure I would brew this exact recipe again, but I do like oatmeal stouts. My goal is to find a heavier, richer version. Our friends could drink it, so it was a successful first attempt!

Look at that great stout color!

Intro: Our hombrewing adventure!

In the quintessential homebrew guide How to Brew, author John Palmer recommends keeping brewing notes for each beer. What ingredients we used, how long we fermented, specific gravity measurements, and tasting notes are all important parts of the brewing process. As Adam Savage (and probably someone else) said, "the only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down." So, instead of tracking down a notebook and trying to decipher my (or my husband's) handwriting, I'm going to keep a homebrew notes blog! (As if I don't have enough blogs already...)

I like to read other people's accounts of brewing as well. Some are so far beyond our skill level right now it just seems like a foreign language (Yeast flocculation? RO water?), but I can usually glean some good tips. And some good stories - like the guy whose cat jumped into his full fermenting bucket, and he still finished bottling the beer.

We are hoping to get good enough at this to open our own brewery someday. I won't tell you the name we have in mind, but we're down to choosing between a nerdy pun and an optometry pun. So keep an eye out! Until then, we'll keep brewing 5 gallons at a time and I'll keep writing about it. Thanks for reading!