Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

7/26/09 – Brew Day

I brewed a 5-gallon batch of a blonde ale this afternoon (see LOG link on the right if you want the details of the recipe and other stuff).  This was my first opportunity to use the Igloo 5-gallon water cooler that I converted to a mash tun.  Everything worked nicely and the cooler held my mash at the proper temperatures for 75 minutes with the use of the foam insulation block in place.  I lost less than 1 degree during the 75 minute mash.

This photo shows the stainless steel braid manifold in this mash tun. This braid worked really well and the vorlauf process seems to be a lot quicker with this braid compared to the copper tubing manifold in my other MLT.

I originally intended to bottle the beer from my last brew today, but I was too hot and tired after I finished brewing to do that, so I might let that amber ale sit for another week in the secondary fermenter.  I'm gonna let today's brew ferment in primary for 14 days and then bottle it with no secondary fermentation.  I guess I could let the amber sit for two more weeks and bottle them both on the same day.  The amber would probably benefit from the extra aging, so we'll just see what happens.