Me and one of my daughters as we watch the beautiful dark wort recirculating in the mash tun. A future brewer in the making!



The pictures above show the underside of the brew stand for those interested in how it was put together. I purchased a stainless steel restaurant kitchen prep table and converted it into the Brewzilla. Works great at a fraction of the price.

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of our last brewing session on May 28th. Above is a picture of the brewing setup.

May Brew Session

On May 12^th several of us home brewers had a Belgian Tripel tasting in my garage with 3 commercials and one home brewed sample. This was the inspiration to last Saturday’s (May 28^th) brewing session in my garage. As is always the case when brewing at the Garage Alchemist you need to produce two batches back-to-back. Usually a "light" beer and a dark one....so we decided on a Bravarian Dukelweizen (dark wheat). Brewing two batches tends to take the better part of our Saturday but it sure beats golfing. The original thought on the wheat was to produce something that would be easy to drink for the wives but after tasting the initial wort I’m not so sure I want to share.

Our Tripel had an OG of 1.075 and the wheat came in at 1.052. Both in line with BJCP guidelines, not that we really follow that. But it sounds good. We pitched the yeast on both brews with very active starters and by later that evening we good signs of active fermentation.

I did a gravity check on both yesterday evening at the Tripel is down to about 1.022 and the wheat is around1.014…not bad for a week’s time. Check in later and I’ll have some pics of the brewing system and another gravity check. Cheers!

Inaugural Brew

So on Saturday February 19th we brewed our first two batches on the new rig-more affectionately referred to as Brewzilla...20 gallons of Pilsner and 20 gallons of American Brown. Both brews turned out pretty well from the the initial gravity readings. We had done two yeast starters earlier in the week to make sure that fermentation started off well. The Brown showed signs of fermentation by early Sunday morning but that was not the case for the Pils. Lagers go take a bit longer to begin fermenting but the time between pitching the yeast nd the beginning of fermentation, known as the lag, can be nerve racking. The last thing a brewer wants to see is a batch of wort go bad. Finally by Monday morning there were signs that the Pils was off to the races. Now only time will tell on how they ultimately turn out.

Our Brew Station

Here's our brewing station.  We took a 6' stainless steel kitchen table and cut about 10" off the legs.  We then added casters so that we can roll the entire station around the garage.  We recently had 3 12" diameter holes cut into the table top.  We mounted 3 Blichmann burners under the table in order to keep the center of gravity low.

On top of the table, we have a hot liquor tank (hot water), a mash tun, and boil kettle.  We use pumps to transport the fluids around (water for mash/sparging, wart for boiling).  We also have a plate chiller for cooling the wart down for fermentation.

First, here's our brewing table.  With the 3 holes cut into it, the Blichmann burners can easily heat our Hot Liquor Tank, Mash Tun, and Boil Kettle.

Here, you can see all 3 vessels on the table.  The pumps mounted at the bottom of the table are used to transfer  wort between the Mash Tun and Boil Kettle.  During the mash, we recirculate the wort from the bottom of the Mash Tun back to the top.

Welcome

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