Yay Beer!

Hi Everyone,

First of all, here is a photo from last Saturday. Abby and I went to see the historic Bale Grist Mill just north of town. It's a restored flour mill from the late 1800's where they actually do milling demonstrations on the weekends. It was much cooler than it sounds. I think that the most interesting part was learning about how the face of the grindstone got re-surfaced periodically. (Don't worry, I won't bore you with it.) I was surprised at how fast the water wheel turned. Here's a photo of me standing by it.

As for the post title, it's finally getting cool enough here in Napa for me to brew. So on my day off yesterday, I got to brew a batch of beer. I made a red ale in the hopes that it will be ready early enough to show a prospective employer what I'd like to do with his current red ale. Here is a photo of my crushed malt in my mash tun.

The lightest grain on the right is pale 2-row, the medium colored grain on the left is caramel 40 , Munich, and biscuit malts, and the darkest is chocolate malt. The metal piece is part of the mash tun and helps to filter the liquid coming out.









Here is a photo of the boil. In professional brewing parlance, I had a rockin' boil. I started with 16 quarts of wort and boiled it down to 10. I was making a 3 gallon batch, so I had to add more water to keep my volume up.









Here is the boiled, chilled, oxygenated beer. I realized that the spot I chose to ferment it was right next to our hydroponic garden, so I had to cover it to keep uv light from damaging the beer. I had made a few covers back in WI, but I didn't bring them here, so I had to think quickly.