The brewing went smoothly and a bit faster than it took with my first attempt with the Winter Warmer extract kit. It’s not so much the difference in the kit as it was gaining experience with brewing itself and using an immersion wort chiller this time around. It helped cut down on the chill time compared to an ice/water/snow bath. I had the wort down to under 100 degrees in 17 minutes, which is quite good.

I remembered this time to take my starting gravity measurement as well: 1.05. The grains in the stout kit smelled great, smooth with a coffee-like aroma. According to the description on the kit, it’s supposed to finish quite smoothly with a coffee finish to it and that it’s at its best when it’s served draft as opposed to bottled. Northern Brewer sells a five-gallon draft kit for $140, but I don’t have a spare refrigerator… and I’m not ready to invest in one of those just yet. So it’ll have to be bottled for now. But who’s complainin’?!

Anyway, a successful night of brewing. I got some good video this time around and hope to make a good beginner’s tutorial out of it. What would be really cool, though, is to have DVD tutorials and do some sort of bartering with Northern Brewer — like video tutorials for materials, etc, or given the opportunity to sell them wholesale to NB.

At any rate. A fun night of brewing. I can’t wait to taste the stout.

January 28, 2006, 11:28 pm

Filed under: Mmm...Beer

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