Smooooooke

So, I finally managed to get back to brewing yesterday! For my first time back as well as my first time doing a partial mash, it went fairly well. However, I don't have super high hopes for this beer. But I'll get into that later. First, I'll talk a little about the brewday.

This brewday just illustrated how resourceful you have to be when brewing. First, I had to take stock of my brewing equipment. Since the move, I haven't really looked at it, and it seems there are a few things missing. I managed to order some of the replacements when I got my ingredients, but I missed a few things. So, I had to get some new tubing for the auto-siphon and had to figure out something for a beer thief. A quick trip to Home Depot took care of the tubing and a turkey baster from Target worked out for the beer thief. The last little piece of equipment I needed was a nylon mesh bag. This was a little trickier and required me going into the city to a brew shop.

After I got all of the equipment in order, I started the brewday. I have to say, they weren't lying when they said the malt was smokey. When I first started the mashing process, our entire apartment smelled like a campfire. As I remarked on twitter, "What's more manly than beer and the smell of a campfire?" Unbeknownst to me, however, the pilot light had gone off in my oven, so when I put my kettle in, it didn't maintain the temperature that I wanted it to. What does that mean? It didn't get great extraction of sugars from the grain. So, my gravity wasn't as high as it should have been, and it's likely it won't have as much of that smokey flavor that I was looking for.

This is the first reason I don't have super high hopes for this beer. The other happened after I pitched the yeast. In the past few hours the active fermentation has begun, but not near as vigorously as I had hoped. Also, it's fermenting a little hot, meaning it will probably produce some off flavors.

The only thing I can do at this point is just wait and see how it turns out. I'm hoping that smokey flavor really stands out and that it doesn't get too phenolic. I guess we'll find out in a few weeks!

Until then, "ARE YA SMOKIN' YET?!"