My Cyser Label. I took a case of it with me, having chilled it overnight, and put on ice once there in my buddie's backyard. It got good reviews, and truly lives up to it's name.
Brew setup for my buddy. He uses an huge electric boiler thing.
Brew area. Outside, in the back yard, nice weather....
Another brewer's Kolsch heating up. Ready for the hour long boil.
Over all, we brewed a Honey Brown Ale (all-grain), a Kolsch (extract, partial boil kit), my Jalpeno IPA recipe (all-grain), and this morning I brewed my Pyment.
The Honey Brown worked out to 1.040.
The Kolsch a nice 1.064.
My Jalapeno IPA out to a 1.042.
The Pyment an incredulous 1.082.
My Jalapeno IPA was simple, 10 lbs of 2-row, and 2 lbs of Caramel 20L. (The 20 Lovibond was just for coloring, by the way, and an afterthought of flavor.) I did a single strike infusion at 180f, calculating in temperature loss in my non-insulated mash-tun. It doubles as my lauter-tun. It stayed in the high range for about fifteen minutes, kept 155f for well over half an hour, and when I went to sparge (rinse), it was 145f.
I did three runnings as our apprentice was watching (the guy doing the Kolsch kit), then sparged at the rate of 1 qt per minute. Keep that ratio and you'll never have a stuck grain bed.
I had well over 5 gallons of wort, having struck my grains with 3.75 gals at 180f, and sparged with 4.15 gals at 175f.
Brought to boil, added 1 oz of Cascade at AA 9.0%, and one ounce Centennial at AA 6.6%. (AA stands for Alpha Acid, basically, the bittering unit in hops. The higher the percentage, the more bitterness.) The IBUs are about 46.8. The IPA style calls for 40-60. Nailed that. Chilled to 75f, then pitched my yeast culture. It was now that I added my Jalapenos, cut into slices, and stirred in. Vigourous fermentation after 40 minutes. I'll do another gravity reading in two days, just to see how it's doing. Estimated ABV is 6.5%.
NOTE: For those of you interested in all grain brewing, I am using "all grain" language. Mashing, and sparging are two more steps you add before the boil. Not hard at all, and less expensive than "Kits". I paid 13.95USD for ten pounds of 2-row Briess, (uncrushed, had to cruch it myself), and 1.95USD for each pound of the 20L Caramel. I had my yeast already, so I just needed hops to finish my recipe. Total bill was 21.04USD. Compare that to a "Kit" price, and then add in you are learning about the whole grain/conversion/wort procedure, and you can't help but want to learn more about the craft of homebrewing.
The Pyment was thus:
3 gals water, heated to 160f. Added 12 pounds home farmed honey. Steeped at 160f for 30 mins to pastuerize, then added 2 tbsp Lemon concentrate, 2 tbsp Lime concentrate, and 12 oz frozen Grape concentrate. Added 2 gals of water to bring up to volume, stirred, slow cooled to 80f, then pitched yeast. Active fermentation after 1 hour. Calculated to 8.3% ABV.
