Category: home brew

Batch 16 Bottled, Batch 17 in the Wings

Bottled up batch 16, our Bombay IPA, last Thursday.  The final gravity was 1.010, initial gravity was 1.050, giving us a .040 difference.  Multiply the .040 by 105 gives us 4.2, which is the percentage by weight.  Multiply 4.2 by 1.25 gives us 5.25, which is the percent by volume.  Sampling the beer it had …

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Batch 16 – India Pale Ale

Wednesday evening my friend and I brewed batch 16, which is based off of Papazian’s recipe “Laughing Heart IPA.”  We did a hops substitution, as we had no Centennial hops but had Chinook, so we used them for the bittering hops. The recipe is a mini-mash, so I started with the grains, doing the stepped …

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Batch 15 Bottled- Buckingham Bitter

Just bottled my 15th batch of beer, the Buckingham Bitter.  Had a taste before it being carbonated- I’m definitely in for a treat! Here’s the label I created for it:

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Beer Labels

Here are a few samples of my beer labels, that I now affix to the bottle cap on each beer, thus saving myself a lot of work scraping labels off of beer bottles.  Best idea I’ve ever had!  Put the label on the bottle cap!  Perfect for a guy like me!

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Buckingham Bitter – Batch 15

Sunday my friend (and investor) and I brewed a bitter, after having received 1lb of fuggles and Kent Goldings hops for free (thanks, Erica!) The recipe called for 12oz of crystal malt and 4.5lbs of light malt extract.  We used a touch over a pound of British caramalt and 5lbs of light malt extract. All …

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Real American Ale – Batch 14

Last night we brewed batch 14, a Papazian recipe called “Real American Ale” (we meaning my investor and myself.)  It is based off of a british bitter, but with American hops instead.  It is also an all malt extract recipe, so it was real easy to do. 4-1/2 lbs of amber malt extract, 1-1/2 oz …

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Bottled Batch 13

Bottled up the batch of beer I made with the wild hops I received for free.  Sampling it, it had a real mild floral aroma and a light amount of bitterness, which I expected.  The malt finish on it was nice.  It’s going to be a much better beer than I first thought. Final gravity …

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Bottled Batch 12

“The Good Life,” as I am planning on calling it, is now bottled and waiting to carbonate in the bottle.  In a week it will be drinkable.  I had some help tonight bottling it, from some strange sexy woman….  Now, at this stage (in the fermentation bucket) all beer has a strange layer of gunk at …

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Batch 13- The Wild Hops Brew

I got some free hops off of Craigslist, so I thought what better way to test them out than to make a batch of beer! I wanted it to be generic and inexpensive ale so I can really see what these hops characteristics are.  So, I picked up 10 lbs of two row and 1 …

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Batch 12- 6 Months in the Making

Not really 6 months in the making, it’s just been that long since I’ve brewed. I’m dead broke.  So, one day a friend approaches me with an offer:  He’ll buy the ingredients, I brew the beer, he takes a portion as payoff for his investment.  Sounds good to me! So, I scoured my Joy of …

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