High in protien, fiber and surprisingly good.

• 3 cups of ground 2-Row Pale Malt, pre-toasted (this was about a 75% 2-Row, 25% Oatmeal mix to be honest)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of molasses
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup egg whites
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp nutmeg

Steps -

1. Pre-heat oven to 300F
2. Mix dry ingredients in a big bowl
3. Mix liquid in a separate bowl
4. Mix them together in big bowl
5. Stir, should be thick
6. Please into a large baking sheet, bake for about 15-20 minutes or until brown
7. Remove and cool for 20 minutes.

Thats it. I figured if it turned out like crap I could give them to the dog, but unfortunately for him they did not.

Sorry you fatty. No cookies for you.

Taking the grain mill for a its first drive!

I brought back a 16oz jar of huckleberry honey from my road trip to Montana and decided to make a beer from it.

Huckleberry Honey Ale

Ingredients –

Grains
•    5.0 lbs Pale Malt 2-Row
•    1.0 lbs Pilsner
•    0.5lbs Honey @ Flameout
Hops
•    1.0oz of Williamette @ 60min
Misc
•    1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
•    1 package Nottingham Yeast, rehydrated in ½ cup warm water

Equipment -
•    6.5 gallon kettle (big kettle)
•    2.0 gallon kettle  (small kettle)
•    Plastic Fermenter
•    Grain Bag (10lbs)

Procedure –

Pre-Mash

0)    Mill grain, place in bag.
1)    Setup insulation for small brew kettle
2)    Pre-heat mash water in small brew kettle, 1.88 gallons (30 cups) to temperature of 164F
3)    Measure out sparge water, 4 gallons (64 cups, 15 litres) in large brew kettle
4)    Boil 2 litres of water in electric kettle (for mash to raise temperature if needed)
Mash
5)    Place grain, in bag, into the mash kettle at appropriate temperature (~163F)
6)    Stir vigorously, take temperature and adjust as needed (use boiling water to raise temp or cold water to lower). Temperature should be between 148F-152F.
7)    Allow to sit for 60 minutes at constant mash temp ( ~150F)
8)    Raise temperature to 170F for last 20 minutes for mash out
9)    Raise temperature of sparge water in large kettle to 170F
10)    Remove and drain grain. Pour wort into clean fermenter from small kettle and place grain back into the empty kettle
11)    Sparge by slowly pouring hot water over the grain, collecting the runnings into the fermenter. Rinse, lather and repeat until mash water is empty.
12)    Take gravity reading of wort and move into the large kettle

BOIL OVER BAD

Boil
13)    Bring wort to boil, add hops at appropriate times
14)    Boil for 60 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, collecting and tossing boil foam
15)    At flame out add yeast nutrient, rehydrate yeast
16)    Cool overnight (no chill)
17)    Move to fermenter, take gravity reading
18)    Pitch yeast

I also took some of the spent grain and made the dog some treats. I used a very simple recipe; 3 cups of spent grain, 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of natural peanut butter, 2 eggs and 1/3 cup of water. Mixed all together and set in the oven at 250F for 2.5 hours.

Spent grain dog treats to help keep Oscar very fat.

In a Bowl, mix all of the following ingredients

• 1 ripe Avocado
• 1 can White Tuna (not grey/light tuna! bleck!)
• 1/2 cup Salsa
• 1 tsp Soy Sauce

Nutrition -

• Calories – ~425kcal
• Protien – ~45g
• Carbs – ~15g
• Fats – ~30g

Serve on toast or whole grain crackers.

Today I began my Brew Day by moving the Dark Tower Graff to the secondary fermenter and taking an specific gravity reading. It seems to have attenuated to 1.010 which is exactly what I was aiming for.

Right on target!

Following that I cleaned up the primary and began brewing my next batch which is an English Brown Ale.

Ingredients -

• 3.75lbs of Pilsner LME
• 0.5lbs of Light DME
• 0.5lbs of Demerara Sugar
• 0.5lbs of 120L Crystal Malt
• 0.25lbs of Black Patent Malt
• 0.5oz of Fuggles @ 60 min
• 0.5oz of Fuggles @ 30 min
• 0.5oz of Fuggles @ 15 min
• 0.5oz of Fuggles @ 5 min
• 1tsp of Irish Moss @ 10 min
• 1tsp of Yeast Nutrient @ cold break
• SafAle S-04 English Yeast

Steps -

1. Steeped the grains for 30 minutes in 7L of water at 75c
2. Added the sugars and malt extracts to the pot and brought to boil

My favorite part - Watching a pot boil

3. Added hop additions at the times listed above, babysitting the boiling wort, stirring frequently

I love the smell of hops in the morning.

4. Removed from the water and placed into an ice bath to bring the temperature down to 45c

Achieve a quick cold break prevents "chill haze" which creates a cloudy beer

5. Moved into the fermenter, topped off with cool water and pitched the SafAle S-04 English Dry yeast onto the wort at around 26c.

The Original gravity was 1.034 which is exactly what I was aiming for. The beer is a bit darker then I wanted, but that is not a big deal. I plan to give this one 3 weeks in the primary and then straight into bottles for 2 weeks of bottle conditioning. The total cost of this batch was around $25.00.

I swear this is the last batch I am making for a long while. I really hope I have enough bottles…

Here is the recipe -

• 7.5lbs Pilsner LME
• 0.5lbs Fancy Grade Molasses
• 0.5lbs Demerara Sugar
• 0.5lbs Chocolate Malt
• 0.5lbs Roasted Barley
• 2 oz Northern Brewer Hops @ 60 minutes (I wanted to use Chinook but they did not have any!)
• 1/2 tsp of Irish Moss @ 10 minutes
• 11g SafAle S-33 Dry Yeast (not rehydrated)

Steps -

1) Steep the grains at 75-80c for 30 minutes in 7L of water. Sparged the grains with 1L of 90c water.

2) Add the sugars/extracts to the pot and bring temperature up to a rolling boil (95c~100c). Add hops.

3) Monitor the temperature and boil for the next 60 minutes, stirring the wort every 3-5 minutes to keep the hops from sticking to the side of the pot. (Nothing beats babysitting a massive pot of boiling wort for an hour. Thank god for music).

4) At 10 minutes left add the irish moss to the wort.

5) Remove from heat, cooled with water directly added to the hot wort. Brought the volume up to 6 gallons, but was not able to achieve a low enough temperature for the yeast so I moved the wort into the freezer for 30 minutes to speed up the cooling.

6) Pitched the SafAle S-33 yeast and closed up the batch.

Original Gravity was 1.056. Hoping to achieve a 1.010 final gravity. The estimated cost of this batch is around 35 dollars and I should be able to get 35 pints out of it, so 1 dollar a pint.

The plan is to allow it 3 weeks in the primary, then move it to a secondary to separate the beer from the trub (hops and grain leftovers that settle to the bottle of the fermenter) and clean it up a bit. I will probably give it 2 more weeks in the secondary, move it into bottles and give it 7-10 days of conditioning.

Now its time to start thinking about next weeks brew…