Unexpected present

My plans today were to make a 10 gallon partial mash. An altbier as the base wort, then a separate grain tea to make a porter out one. Well, last night, at a very fun St. Patty's day party, I was given 5 gallons of reverse osmosis sap. OG 1.030 What to do?
So I'm turning the all grain grains into an old ale. German pale ale, dark munich, 4 different crystal malts, some East Kent Goldings and a blend of European ale and London yeasts. Starting gravity looks like the mid-70's so I think I'll add all the yeast that I was going to use for the 10 gallons. That's the plan....boiling right now.

Red Rye Lager

Long time no blog, but I've been brewing.  Brewed and gone: Irish Red ale & a dry Stout.  In the keg now, American Pale Ale and a German Pilsner is up next.  Did a 10 gallon partial mash of a brown ale: American ale yeast/hops upstairs and a pilsner blend in the cellar.  Not sure what either one is, probably just homebrew. 

Today is a reddish lager with 30% rye.  I use malted rye, flaked rye and just a couple of ounces of chocolate rye to redden it up. Hops will be leftover odds & ends from the fridge.  Will try to go moderate, maybe 35-45 IBU's.  Usually wait to make up the hop schedule once I have a reading on the starting gravity after the sparge.

So after the brew is over, it's done, pitched, in the can.  Used Bullion, US Hallertau, and Liberty.  Yum Yum.  The "keller" is 47F...so I pitched a huge jar of slurry.

It's all good.

Hoppy Brew Year!

Okay, it's harder than it looks to blog consistantly. But it's a new year so what the heck, let's try again.

So today is a two-fer: I have a Ringwood slurry and a Pilsner blend slurry. The pils blend is three yeasts, all pils strains. So in a hurry to get a recipe put together I did this: Dark Munich, Dark wheat, German pale ale, UK pale ale, cara munich III and chocolate rye. Also 5.82 pounds of light dry malt. Hopping for the lager is all Northern Brewer : 1 oz @ 60, 2 oz @ 30, 1 oz. @ 2. Got a bit more creative on the ale: pretty steady hopping with moderate amounts of: Centennial, Sorachi Ace, Cluster, Galena, Yakima Magnum and Willamette. All leftover hops so a good way to use 'em up. So eventually 10 gallons of homebrew: done the partial mash way. In spite of the different hop schedules and yeast, it'll be interesting to see how the same wort can be manipulated to give you two different beers.

Forecast is for more snow....I baked a loaf of bread and the windows are all steamed up. My family is home from parts far away and I'm looking forward to seeing some GOP ass getting kicked in 2008.

Life is good...