On May 12th 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 28th) 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!
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.