Brewed a Leffe Blonde This Week

This week we brewed in the style of the Leffe Blonde of Belguim.

"Leffe Blond is a pale abbey beer, with a full, sunny, golden colour. It has a smooth and full bodied taste and a rich creamy head. Like all the Leffe beers, it is a "connoisseur" beer that is easy to drink." (ratebeer.com)

Green Pants Pale Ale

We drank the Green Pants Pale and whoiee is it a goodin. It is smooth and drinkable; very well balanced. The most remarkable thing about it though, is it's fruity nose which has hints of strawberry.

Pictures Of Brewing on Sunday Februaru 12, 2006

TOP: sparging the wart out of the cooler.

BOTTOM: milled grain and water mixing at 150-155 to convert startch to sugar.

Beligian Dubbel

Sunday was a pretty crazy day, you talk about dedication to the whole beer brewing process well we definately have it... As you already know Sunday is the day we brew the beer. What you may not know is, this past Saturday the Northeast, which is where we live, was hit with a mojor snow storm (someplaces over 20 inches). DOES THAT STOP US!!!! HELL NO!!!!!! I spent saturday night at the location of the brewing as well as one other person and the homeowner brewer and then there was Steve. Steve everybody is one of two people that live in the city over the river and boy did he suprise us when he showed up ready to go at like 10:30 in the morning. Heres to you Steve and everyone with your dedication.

Here is the ingredients of the Belgian Dubbel that we made on Sunday February 12, 2006

Mill:
14 Lbs. ASM Malt
1 Lb Special B
4 Oz. Chocolate Malt

Mash:
2 Hours at 150-155 degrees Farenheight by bringing a pot of water with 3 gallons to 170 and add it while adding the milled grain into a gaterade cooler. Try to do this equally so as to distribute the water and the grain evenly.
Once the water and grain are in the cooler check the temp to make sure its in the 150-155 range and then let it be for two hours not checking it again. (ifs its snowing like hell outside bring the cooler inside)

Sparge:
Bring another 4 gallons of water to 175 to start the sparging process. This is done by letting the water out of the cooler (you're gonna have to try this one different ways we baught a sparging filter for the bottom of ours at Goerge's) while at the same time adding new water into the cooler. You may have to mix the grain around and scrape teh bottom of the filter to maintain a constant flow of water. Once you do this a bunch of times your grain should lose its sweetness and thats when you can stop passing water through.

Boil:
The liquid that comes out of sparging is not beer and has no alcohol so don't get to excited. However, when I am making anything, whether it be food or beer, I have to try it as its going along. So I drink a little here and there just for kicks. What you are going to do to this liquid, wart is what it's called, is bring it to a boil to get some of the water out and keep the sugar and flavor in. This is also the time that you add some hops for bitterness and flavor plus you can add other things for additional flavor, in our case we added some cinnamon, corriander, and some other misc. spices. You boil for one hour and in the last fifteen minutes we added a tsp of moss for clarity and another oz of hops for flavor.

Chilling:
Now it's time for you to chill your wart by transfering it to a white primary fermenting bucket. When you do this you can filter it all you want because airating the liquid is a good idea. You have to trasfer the wart through a cooling coil that is submerged into ice water to get the temp down to 70 degrees. Once the wart is in the primary bucket you can add your yeast in this case we added liquid Belgian Dubbel yest.

AND THATS IT!!!
In one week we will transfer it to a secondary glass fermenter and then its time to sit for a while. but don't worry I will be letting you know how everything goes and I will be posting more later so come back often!!

True Dedication without Premature Erackulation

Last night to say the least was quite adventurous. We bottle about 100 beers and moved a primary to secondary. Believe me if I told you the work that was done you would never guess how long it took us to do. Anyhow before I digress any farther I am very proud of the progress that has happened since we started this little operation. And one person who deserves most of the credit is George Hummel you should click on that name to learn a thing or two. One of the beers we bottle yesterday was designed by this man and won several awards in the Philadelphia area.

Since this blog was created after beer 7 I don't think that we will be posting any recipes unless people want to know what we brewed so if you want to know just ask and I will gladly post it for you.

Stay tuned for future postings and don't forget to click on the banner to support the local brew!!

The Immaculate Inception

Welcome to the first of many posts by yours truly... This is my first official foray into the realm of blogging so I am hoping that everyone will help in the creation of the site and the longevity and legitimacy of its topics.

As the description states this blog will be a dedication to the art of homebrewing. Posted on this site will be the recipes used in our Sunday ritual as well as any trouble that we encounter during the brew process.. We will try to explain in detail the steps taken to brew some of what we feel is the best tasting beer in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!! Ok maybe not the best but it feels damn good to create something from scratch now doesn't it?