Fercious Dry Hopping

The furious clone has been racked to secondary for dry hopping.  I am going to dry hop for 10 days then bottle it.  It was my first time using Star-San and wow is it foamy...but don't fear the foam!  The racking went smooth and all seems well.  The beer is fairly clear but I am hoping that the time in secondary will do it some good as it does have some haze.  But as long as the final product is tasty who cares!  It smells tasty and it will be in the bottle in a little over a week.  Cannot wait to tase it!

Great Cover Part Deux

Sorry about the commercial at the beginning. I have got to say that this is probably one of my favorite Stones songs, this and can you hear me knocking. Taj is a legend in his own right and this combination is amazing to say the least. Enjoy!

A Great Cover Tune

Fercious Update 2

I did not rack to secondary.  On Saturday I raised the temp to 70 to get any last activity completed.  I took a gravity reading last night and it was 1.018 so it is getting close.  I will rack to secondary either sometime this week or on Saturday.  Saturday is the most likely as I have to do quite a bit of cleaning and sanitising and I doubt that i will have time during the week.

Fercious Update

Airlock activity has greatly slowed, and I have raised the fermentation temp a few degrees.  Fermentation strated at around 62-63 ambient air temp and yesterday I raised it to 63-64. This weekend I plan on taking a gravity reading to see where fermentation is at. If the gravity is close to the expected FG then I will rack into secondary (5 gallon Better Bottle) and dry hop for 7 days. After reading lots of brew forums and getting some advice from other sources it may seem like I am rushing a bit. There is tons of controversy amongst home brewers over the racking to secondary and when to do it and do the risks outweigh the benefits. Well, I am just going to listen to my hydrogmeter and see what it tells me. If I am close then I am going to rack, if not I will give it a little bit more time in primary. I am a little impatient as this is the first batch of beer all on my own, but I am just going to see what the batch tells me and go with it. Expect more updates and pics if time allows.

Greatest movie of all time?

First Brew Day...

Here are some pictures of the first brew day.  I definately learned quite a bit and now I wish I would have done an easier brew for brew number one, but hey, as long as there is no contamination it should be at the minimum drinkable.  The biggest thing that I learned is that my kettle only hold 7 gallons.  I was shoot ing for 6.5 and forgot to factor in the amount of extract that needs to get put in so I over shot the water which lead to a much lower gravity than I was hoping for as I was not able to get all of the mixed extract in the kettle, painful lesson but I definately will never repeat that mistake again.  Fermentation started just fine and was active the next morning so I think it will be alright.  Here are the pics:

Steeping the Crystal 50/60

Hops all ready to go

The boil..bad pic it was rolling but looks flat here

Racking to Primary and getting ready to pitch

The sweet wort is aerated and yeast has been pitched.

All in all it was successful, the wait is killing me but hopefully I will know in about a month if I did alright!