Well, I said in my last post that I was planning to do an all-grain belgian Blond on New Years’ Day.  It didn’t work out quite that way, but New Years’ Day was still a good brew day.  I didn’t brew anything for myself, but I did help teach a friend to brew and we made his first batch of homebrew.  My wife always tells me that I should have been a teacher because I love to explain things to people, so this kind of thing makes for a good day for me.

Tom, The Noob

To the left you see my friend, Tom.  Hereinafter referred to as “Noob.”  Just kidding.  Tom’s a good guy and very smart. He’s a detail guy, so I fully expect him to end up being a better brewer than I am in pretty short order.

For Christmas Tom got his first brewing equipment kit and his first ingredient kit, so that was what we made.  It was a pretty basic American Pale Ale extract kit from Brewers’ Best.  Me being me, we couldn’t just brew the kit…We had to doctor it up a bit.  All we did was to add an extra half ounce of Sorachi Ace hops, but it wasn’t my batch, so I didn’t want to mess with it too much!

As of a couple of days after the brew day it was bubbling away merrily in Tom’s basement, doing what it’s supposed to do.  With a little luck I’ll have a chance to try it when it’s ready.

Now all of that doesn’t mean that the Belgian Blond didn’t get made, though.  A couple of days before New Years’ Declan asked if I felt like brewing it up before he went out of town, so we made 10 gallons of Ahura Mazda Belgian Blond, and when I left to pick my son up at daycare Declan continued brewing and made a batch of Marzen that we split, too.  Yeah, he did all of the work on that one, and I appreciate that!

As for the Ahura Mazda the recipe looked like this:

20# Belgian Pilsner Malt

1# Flaked Maize

1# White Wheat Malt

2# Cane Sugar

1 oz. ea. Saaz and Magnum hops for bittering

2 oz. Santiam Hops for aroma

Our target mash temp was 154 and we came in at 148, if I remember correctly.  It’s definitely going to be a light bodied beer!  With the flaked maize and the cane sugar the Original Gravity ended up landing at about 1.074, and both Declan and I pitched onto belgian yeast cakes from our Esprit de Neu Beige batch, so we both got a good fast light off from that huge yeast population!  This is going to be a very alcoholic beer!  It was brewed on 12/28 and as of last night when I was down in my basement it was still bubbling with visible motion in the carboy.  So there’s still action going on in there!  Smells like heaven and it’s a beautiful straw color that will look great in a glass.  This is definitely one that I’ll have to bootle, because this beer on tap would be really dangerous!

As for the Marzen here’s the recipe:

5# ea of German and Belgian Pilsner malts and Munich Malt

3# of Dark Munich Malt

.5# ea of Carapils, CaraMunich and Melanoiden Malts

2 oz. of Hallertau Hops and .5 oz. of  Tettnang Hops for bittering, no aroma addition

Saflager S-23 yeast

The mash schedule was more complicated than usual, including a protein rest at 122 degrees and a Saccarification rest at 154 degrees, both of which Declan hit within a degree or two.

Oh, we’re fermenting Ahura Mazda on Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity (me) and Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale Yeast (Declan)

Anyway, That’s my recent brewing history.

I think in the next couple of weeks we’re going to make either a Belgian Dubbel or Tripel.  Those will also go on the same yeast cakes (or possibly washed yeast) and I was thinking about brewing up a Black IPA this afternoon, but to be honest, it’s frickin’ cold outside and I have plenty of things that need doing inside the house today.

One last thing, Saturday night Declan helped me install electrical into my brewing space, which is pretty huge.  All I have to say is: Woo Hoo! No more work lights and extension cords! On Sunday I replaced the door, so now I can even control access!  Sounds like a bigger deal than it is, because most of my finished beer lives outside that room anyways.

One more last thing…I got a free chest freezer that I’m going to make into a keezer.  I already have the temp controller, so I’ll wire it up for the short term and just use the picnic taps for the winter and in the spring I’ll build a collar for it and install some taps.  I’ll post on that when it happens!

Happy New Year everybody!  Hope you all have a great, safe and productive 2012!