Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Brew Day and Upgrades

Today was brew day... finally! I have been sidetracked from getting this brew done since Christmas. I have had all sorts of roadblocks pop up that have kept me from getting this "Rusty Nut Red Ale" made. Some of the delays were my fault. I actually wanted to wait until some of my equipment upgrades arrived before making this recipe. In the above photo, you can see my new 10-gallon stainless steel brew kettle. It's also sitting on my new Hurricane Burner (pictured below) as well. The Hurricane Burner is whisper quiet, puts out up to 60k BTU, and runs on no more than 1 psi. I'm hoping it will extend the life of a regular propane cylinder.

I had another unexpected turn of events today that forced me to use another new piece of gear. I had disassembled my 5-gallon mash tun to fix a minor problem with it. I didn't bother to check it for leaks when I put it back together, and sure enough, it was leaking. I switched over to my 10-gallon version that I had never used before. Luckily it worked out well and produced 80% efficiency, so I'm quite happy with that. The 10-gallon MLT wasn't scheduled to go into production until my next beer, which will be a big imperial stout. The ingredients for that will be here later this week and I'm not sure when I'll brew that one just yet, but it will be soon.  I mashed inside today because it was a bit chilly outside around noon today. 

When the Man Cave was getting the recent remodel job, Tonya bought this Hoosier Cabinet for me to use as storage for brewery stuff, and I think I have finally figured out how to best put it to use. I'm going to use it to store speciatly and base malts. This project will help me keep enough stuff on hand so I can brew about anything I want on short notice if I choose to do so.  The three base malts in the bottom left cabinet are Munich, Vienna, and Pilsner.  I have a 15-gallon container in another location that is full of regular 2-row that won't fit in this cabinet.  The specialty malts I intend to keep on hand are carapils, flaked oats, victory, biscuit, crystal 10, crystal 20, crystal 40, crystal 60, crystal 80, crystal 120, chocolate, roasted barley, black patent, and a few others that I'm not sure about yet. 

I hate brewing on weekdays. I'd much rather brew on a weekend when I have a better potential of getting friends to stop by. The next brew will be on a Saturday or Sunday for sure...