Group Brew

Through my endless perusing of various home brew related websites, I noticed that people occasionally get together and share in the joy of brewing.  This sounded like a fantastic idea and so, I invited my good friends Andrew and Jordan over during Labor Day weekend to brew up a nice Vanilla Porter.  We discussed the various options we could pursue as far as recipes were concerned and settled on a nice porter which gets an addition of vanilla beans in the secondary phase of fermentation.  With Autumn on it’s way, my tastes start drifting toward some of the richer, heavier beers like porters and stouts.  A porter seems to be a nice transition from drinking wheats and paler ales to the deep dark tones of a good stout.

We decided that we would spilt the ingredient costs and then split the end product.  We were going to stick with extract since that was all we could do and I offered to host the brew day.  I had just brewed a batch a few days ago (Thunderstruck link) so all of my gear was clean and ready to go.  One ingredient I paid special attention to was the vanilla bean.  Store bought vanilla tends to be lifeless and wouldn’t bring the flavor I was hoping for.  Never afraid to take to the internet, I stumbled upon Beanilla.  Specializing in various varieties of vanilla from different parts of the world, Beanilla seemed like an easy way to get a quality product that would enhance the beer.  I decided on a Bourbon Vanilla because of its traditional flavors which should bring a nice warmth to the beers flavor profile.

With all of ingredients secured, we set out.  The brew day went really well.  We were able to knock out steeping the grains and getting the pot into a full boil without any problems.  After making our three hop additions, enjoying some great beers, and calling the day a success, we put the fermentor in an ice bath to let it cool and headed out to one of the local craft breweries, Barley Island, to enjoy some more beer and food.  After paying the bill and getting some growlers filled, we called it a day and parted ways.  

I had a great time brewing with the guys and have high hopes for the beer we produced.  However, I confirmed a problem in my setup that I will need to deal with.  During my first brew, I was able to get my beer down to pitching temperature with a single pass through my counterflow chiller.  I was thrilled with the performance and hoped that it would continue.  So far it has not.  I was able to get the wort down into the mid 80s but had to put it in a bath to get it to cool the rest of the way.  This was the same case with my previous brew.  The easiest solution I can think of is to recirculate the wort through the chiller and back into the kettle until it comes down to pitch temps.  All this to say, the value of a pump, as part of the brewing process, is becoming more and more evident.  I also realize that I probably would have been better off building an immersion chiller at first but it is too late for that now.

I thoroughly enjoyed brewing with the guys and I think they enjoyed it as well.  I ended up taking on a teacher role, filling them in on my process and why I made certain choices that I did.  Andrew had one beer under his belt but it was years ago.  Jordan is getting ready to take the plunge but wants to hold off until he moves into his house, which is the same qualifier that I was faced with.  I think the experience got them both excited to get brewing and I hope they do, because I want to be able to trade some beer in the future.  It would be a shame if we didn’t do another collective beer, so hopefully that is in the cards down the road as well.