Brew Club

I’m heading up the formation of a home brewing club here in Chapel Hill.  There seem to be a lot of brewers in the area, and I think it’d be a lot of fun to get together as a group.  The first meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, November 22, from 4-6 pm.  We’ll be giving out info at the Home Brew Festival on November 7th, and the date will be verified by then.  I have a website for the club which is temporarily located on my UNC webspace: http://www.unc.edu/~boren/chchbc.  It’s far from done, and it’ll be moved once the club gets going enough to fund the purchase of a domain name, but it’s got the important information.  If you’re a brewer in the area, definitely check out the site, and consider coming to the first meeting. We’ll be giving away a six pack of beer to the person who comes up with the best name for the club, so be thinking of ideas.

New IPA

I just brewed an IPA, as a consolation for the first brew which turned out so badly.  Here’s the recipe:

Expected OG at 70% eff: 1.064

10 lb 2-row
2 lb Vienna Malt
.5 lb Crystal 60L

Mash @ 152

1 oz Magnum @ 60 min
1 oz Cascade @ 15 min
1 oz Willamette @ 15 min
1 oz Willamette @ 5 min
1 oz Cascade @ 5 min

1 oz Cascade, dry hop
1 oz Willamette, dry hop

52.63 IBU

Nottingham Dry Ale Yeast

… Except that Fifth Season didn’t have Vienna Malt, and I didn’t realize it until I’d already crushed 2lb of Victory Malt in with the rest of my grains!  Duh.  So I brewed it anyway.  It’ll be a different beer than expected, but should still be ok.  I bought hops in bulk (something I’ll probably continue to do), which reduced my price /oz from $2.50-$3.50 to around $.60, from www.hopsdirect.com.  I also used FermCap S for the first time.  It’s a foam inhibitor, and it allowed me to fill my brew pot much fuller than I’d normally be comfortable, without having to worry about a boilover.  I had low-ish efficiency (again) and ended up with an OG of 1.057.  I’ll have to do some detective work to figure out the flaws in my system.  Anyway, it’s in the fermenting chamber, bubbling away with a thin layer of foam.

I also got a temperature controller for the chest freezer.  It’s holding steady between 36F and 44F, which is perfect.  I have an oatmeal stout freshly kegged and carbonating.  I plan to take it and the Belgian Wit, which finished about a week ago, to the Carrboro World Homebrew Festival on November 7th.  If you’re at all interested, you should come out.  Be sure to reserve your free ticket on the website.