Where are you geting SImcoe hops. AHS says there is a worldwide shortage or something......?
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Brewed an Imperial Stout on St. Patrick's Day. 1.150 going into the fermenter. Second runnings off it resulted in another Imperial Stout at 1.085, but at 5.5gal instead of 5. Wanted to boil longer to get 5 a higher gravity, but oh well. Interesting brewday that went surprisingly well. Big ole starter and O2 injection each day. Hope it ferments well.
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I've read that they're in short supply because U.S. harvests were down last year. I don't buy in huge bulk, though, so I haven't had any problems getting Simcoe or Amarillo (both whole leaf & pellet.) These either came from my HBS or Midwest Supply. I've had them since December.
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Primary and secondary are finally both empty.
I bottled my RIS yesterday. It started at 1.125 and finished at 1.020 for a whopping 13.83% ABV.
My brewstand should be done this week. I'll post pics before and after powder coating.
After powder is down and baked, I'll just have to plumb it up and do some final wiring.

American Pils will be the test batch on the new rig:

Classic American Pilsner
Type: All Grain
Date: 3/20/2011
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Brewer: Tim Lael
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Equipment: My All Grain
Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00

Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.50 lb Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.8 SRM) Grain 64.71 %
2.00 lb Maris Otter (Crisp) (4.0 SRM) Grain 23.53 %
1.00 lb Rice, Flaked (Briess) (1.0 SRM) Grain 11.76 %
0.50 oz Sterling [7.50 %] (60 min) Hops 13.2 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 5.3 IBU
0.50 oz Sterling [7.50 %] (15 min) Hops 6.5 IBU
1 Pkgs American Lager (White Labs #WLP840) Yeast-
Lager
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.045 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.62
Bitterness: 25.0 IBU
Est Color: 3.5 SRM

Notes
Created with BeerSmith
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I brewed a 3.5 gallon batch of a Bell's Two-Hearted clone yesterday. It was my first all-grain and I used a brew in a bag method on my stove.

Had some trouble with the mash, and hitting the correct gravities, but with the help of a little DME, it ended up pretty close.

It was bubbling away this morning while I was getting ready for work!
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my first ~all-grain, although just a half batch, and I blew it!

Forgot the flaked wheat on the modified Chimay GR clone! WTF! Anyway, it was only 1/16th of the grain bill, but still...weak move. It was in a separate bag because I didn't run it through the mill at the shop. Went to grab my thief after the cool and there is a brown paper bag sitting there. Oh well, hit 1.070 OG and I don't think I'll mind drinkin it :-).

I'd like to try a slightly finer mill next time so I can really start settling in to some decent BIAB efficiencies.
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All grain batches right now:

Kegged: Northern Brown, British pale Ale, Honey Cream Ale. A 2 hearted clone is going down fast. A honey Altbier is about dead and a sangria made with wine we made in 2009 is up next.

Fermenting: Kriek (started last sunday). This will take ~18 months. At least 12 before I add the cherries.

Next: Oatmeal stout, Porter, another Cream Ale, another Kriek, and 10 gallon batches of Jamil's Robust Porter and my ersatz 2 hearted.
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Bottled this last night with a bit less priming sugar than I typically use (3.25 oz for 4.5 gallons.) Hoping to get the carbonation right, that should give me 2.2vol CO2. Beer weighed in at 1.020, so it's dead on with the recipe. Tasted pretty good, too :-) :-)
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I bottled my all-grain Centennial Blonde on Friday. I had a few homebrews before starting so I hope I didn't screw anything up. This weekend I will attempt a Blue Moon clone.
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I think we are going to try a wheat beer this weekend as well. We haven't settled on a recipe yet but I think it will probably a Bavarian style Hefe, fermented warm to get some banana esters :-) (just wanted to use the dancing nanner)
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185,000 BTU's of fun on the way to my house right now. Getting 7.5 gallons up to a boil on the stove took me about 2 hours. Hoping to have that down to about 30 minutes.
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I just purchased a 40 quart stock pot to replace my 32 quart. The 32 quart served it's purpose but it was a little too close for comfort for full boils. Now I need to decide if I want to install a a weldless fitting with valve to drain the wort. I usually rack from the kettle so I leave behind as much cold break and hop particles as possible. The last batch I tried to whirlpool to get all the material to the center of the kettle but it didn't work as well as I wanted. For those of you who have a valve how do you avoid having all the material end up in your primary and what type of fitting do you use inside the kettle?
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I just placed an order with Austin Homebrew for 7 recipe kits.
Sunday is the last day for the $20 Anniversary kits!
Here is what I got:

Wit
ESB
Hefeweizen
IPA
Porter
Stout
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Thanks for the link! Just ordered 2. Not sure that I could make 7 in a month. :-)
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Im hoping they will last me through the summer and I will brewing something special with the Stout & Porter to have for winter time.
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did you get the LME or all wheat?
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Nice job on your RIS attenuation! Looking at your CAP recipe, where's the 6 row brother? I'd take half of that 2-row and sub 6-row and then sub Pilsner malt for the other half. :-) 6 Row really adds another dimension! Also, I'd save the MO for an English beer. When CAPs were brewed back in the day they didn't have any fancy malts! Also, I like corn a whole hell of a lot; I tried Rice and it's not for me. Just my 2 cents.

Also, if you like noble hops, Perle for bittering and Saaz/Tettnang for flavor/aroma is an awful nice combination :-) If you want super classic pre-prohibition and like cat piss flavor try cluster hops LOL.
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Yeah... that great attenuation made a fairly hot beer. We'll see what time does on that.

I will take your advice on the Pils... for the second batch. I wanted to stray just a bit on the first batch since it will be for my BMC friend that helped me build the stand. I want him to see that beer can have flavor and be simple. I think I will go with the Perle, Saaz/Tettnang on both batches though. Nice idea... I'll keep my cascades for IPA and AIPAs. They really don't have a place here. And the corn... I am still 50/50 on that... what do you see as an advantage compared to rice? I do rice 'cause its easy, but I guess corn would be just as if not easier. Do you still cereal mash it?
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To me Rice adds a bit of "insipid" to the flavor profile. I just didn't care for it personally. I used Flaked Maize (Corn) and there is no cereal mash needed. Just through it in with the rest of your malt in the mash! I find corn gives a nice delicate sweetness at about 18% of the grist. Rice is more neutral, but I'm usually not a "neutral" kind of guy :-)
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Well, got my regional round scores back today. The Imperial IPAs both scored 36/50--which is great especially for my son's first beer--and the Cream Ale 31/50. Judges said that Winston's Lot could have done much better in a different category, but it had lost some of its hop aroma so it didn't fit the style. It got high scores in the "flavor" and "overall" components, though. I didn't have much hope for the Cream Ale, just wanted to see how it did.

The Belgian Specialty ale, however, took First Place in its category and advances to the Nationals final round in San Diego! :-) Not sure how many beers it competed against, but there were over 750 total entries in my region. The judges comments were all very high and extremely positive, so I'm super excited about this. :-) I've given away almost all of this beer since it was my Christmas gift to friends & co-workers, but I fortunately have just enough to enter into finals. It will definitely be an annual tradition around Castle Hollow Brewery :-)

Thought I'd share the good news with my fellow HBOTLs!
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