I do all of my washing out in the yard....Grass is always greener there ;o)
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Brewing the sour half of a Berliner Weiss this evening. 2 gallons of wort going onto a cup or two of pilsner malt for to get the lacto culture going. Also going to pitch some jolly pumpkin dregs into it.

Friday I'll brew 3 gallons of the same wort and pitch a kolsch yeast into it. When they both finish up I'll blend them over raspberries or something. Should be a killer lawnmower beer come end of July and August.
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I've got a blonde (AG) and an amber (extract) in primary right now. Probably bottle the blonde this weekend and I've got plans to brew a big IIPA on April 13th so I'll probably reuse the yeast cake on the amber for that one.
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Starting my first home brew today. A little anxious with all this sanitization, hope i dont miss a little microbe
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Don't be. Do the best you can and pitch healthy yeast. You won't have any issues.
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15 gallons transferred into secondary today.
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high five!
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so far so good. 21 hours from completion of racking to the primary, used liquid wyeast, fermenting like a champ
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Looking at taking the plunge when I get back from deployment. Debating how far I want to jump. Keg vs bottle. Extract vs all-grain. Decisions, decisions. Suggestions? Can I keg and bottle? I have about two months to make a decision.
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2nd contest it scored a 33 1/2. That is in the very good range. Between the 2 contests, 3 out of the 4 judges said it was "hot". Which meant that it had, to much alcohol bite/ medicinal. I think that should mellow, with bottle aging.
Also, it had to much spice profile. Both of these are "out of style" for a Belgian Dubble.

I enjoyed it . Was cool to get feedback.
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Brewed a Pale Ale with 4 ounces of Cascade hops, this weekend.
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Reggie,

You can bottle from a keg. Don't think you need to get a beer gun. Search for a DIY counter pressure bottle filler.
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Both.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/we-n...eer-gun-24678/
Works slick.
Keg, then fill growlers or bottles as needed.
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Might have to look into this when i get up there.
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Thanks for the input. DIY? You obviously don't know who you're talking to. :-)
I will look into working that out. I do have a bit of time. Guess I'll start extract. All-grain eventually.
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Homebrew Herfest II on Saturday with icantbejon, Matt, and Doug (from Winston's Humidor fame,) all brewing up different beers:

http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showpo...postcount=1664

JohnnyKay5 was on remote with us from NC doing his first brew :-)

I brewed up a Rauchbier/Smoked Octoberfest which smelled incredible in the kettle, pitched it on top of a bock yeastcake and the thing took off almost immediately.

Ferg brewed a Kolsch, and at the end of the day we combined our second runnings into a smaller batch which I cooked up later that evening and pitched with some Bell's yeast. It's still not doing anything in the fermenter, so maybe that experiment will be a bust. It was one ugly looking beer anyway :-)
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I think that is the way to go. You can get great results with extract brewing. You'll get a handle on whether or not you enjoy the process. If you do, then look into all grain.
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if you can buy the parts and slip the rubber stopper over the racking cane, then plug it into a pre-made hose.. You are good to go.
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I'm surprised the scores differed by that much. I'm psyched to get some beers into competition next month after reading your comments. Be good to get some feedback.

Hot alcohols (fusels generally) can be formed from fermenting too warm and not pitching enough yeast. Reading up on Belgian brewing it seems like a lot of the breweries start fermentation cool to keep fusels down and then let the temps ramp up later in the process.
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That's the plan.

So, super simple? EXCELLENT!!
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