Live-Blogging Brew Day!

The Queen has commanded that the next beer I brew be a vanilla porter, so that’s what’s on the agenda today. I looked up recipes for vanilla porters on teh intarwebs because I assumed there must be something special about them, but there’s not. They’re all just recipes for porters with a vanilla bean or two thrown in at the end. And that’s just what I’m going to do.

2:45 OG 1.080

2:35 pitched yeast 1056 American Ale

2:30 into the carboy! temp 72 deg F

2:10 burner off, add 1 oz German Tettnang hops (4.5% alpha)

1:30 temp 212 deg F – finally got a rolling boil going! *whew!*

1:10 added 1 oz Fuggles hops (5.7% alpha) – STILL NOT BOILING!

12:50 Removed & strained the grains – still not boiling (WTF?) – added 7 lbs Munton’s Plain Amber DME

11:50 lit a fire under 2.5 gal water and added 1/2 lb TF&S Dark Crystal and 1/4 lb UK Black Patent. It’ll take 20 – 30 mins for that to come to a boil, plenty of time for the grains to give the brew a nice, dark color.