Los Angeles Brewers

Ten gallons of a Pilsner Urquell clone is in process.

We planned on a two step mash but were forced into a third step with our broken thermometer.

Looking good so far.

Bummer. Had to dump the water, clean and start over.

While heating our HLT for 10 gallons of Pilsner we see this in the bottom.

Our blond ales were kegged. The American dry hop leaves can be seen in one photo below. The other is the Belgian which, even after racking to secondary, had a lot of sediment. These should be good. Final gravity hit the mark at 1.010.

The holiday ale made it to the USC vs. Oregon tailgate, where it was completely consumed. Reviews were good.

The mini CO2 and tap kit worked great. It uses more than one and less than two cylinders to push a 5 gallon keg.

We also tapped the Pumpkin Ale. It was pretty weak, but still pretty good. We tried it with a bit of pumpkin syrup (the kind Starbucks adds th their lattes) and it was tasty.

We are using Clone Brews’ recipe as a base to build our IPA we are doing today.

IBU target is in the mid 70’s with an alcohol level of ~6.5%. OG target of 1.066 and final of 1.017

We are also working on optimizing our pump set-up, hose lengths, etc.

We now have 7 thermometers. Hopefully we get our temps correct.

The dry yeast is a beast. Total volcano action. Lost about a quart of wort/beer at most.
Good to know the yeast is alive and healthy.

Well, perhaps we were too hasty in making a judgment about the Belgian yeast. It worked! Well, started anyway. Fingers crossed.

The temp controller is working well too. Now within 0.2 degrees C of target.

After 18 hours, our American Ale yeast is going strong. The Belgian, not so much. We pitched two vials of White Labs to boot. Hoping it is just a slow start.

The temp controller is working but reading a bit low. Overshot by almost a full degree as it brought the temps down for the first time. At the lower temp, the “heat” lamp is lit. If we had a heating element, we could have a closer temp.

We kegged our two seasonal beers. They are both pretty weak. Too thin due to our poor efficiencies. If they don’t work we should have enough time to crank one out for Christmas. Gassing to 2.5 volumes or 12psi at 40 degrees.