O'Leary's Barn Burner - Brewing

It's one thing to have an idea in your head and another to actually bring it to life. Like I described in my last post I had an idea of my brew day for O'Leary's Barn Burner. I figured I'd carefully measure out all of my ingredients and brew different batches in an attempt to nail down the flavors I was looking for. I planned to brew one day and had to push it to another. The best laid plans of mice and men...

Brew day arrived while my dad was in town for my birthday. We decided to do two batches, one with a stepped mash and one with a single mash at 152 degrees. The stepped mash we did at 99, 144 and 152 degrees. We did the full gallon for the stepped mash, adding water as it heated to bring the temperature up. The single mash was with two quarts of water.

The process of brewing went well. The only issue that popped up was we miss-measured the grains initially, I got a new scale and didn't read it right. We also found that the scale didn't go low enough for the hop measurements and we ended up guesstimating the hop measurements.

We split the two batches between my two carboys and sat back to wait.

After 14 days one batch went directly into bottles and the other went into secondary fermentation for another seven days.

Both batches of bottles sat for at least 14 days before they were put in the fridge.

What did I learn?

I would probably pull back a little on the smoked malt. I liked the flavor but it was just a little strong.

I would like to switch out the Cascade Hops for a UK variety. Don't know which yet but I'm open to suggestions.

If I make two batches at once again I would blend them before I bottle.

In the end I really like the results of this brew. It came in at 5.5% and, while the smokey smell is strong, it really mellows out.

If you've had it let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Brewing next...Anchor Chucker Ale - A SMaSH Experiment.

Brewing again

Made my first IPA last weekend. Tried some new stuff out and learned a few things.


I decided it was time to brew again. I wanted to try out brewing a modified Everyday IPA from Brooklyn Brew Shop.
The mash in and out went well but I changed a few things out when it came to sparging. I used a new, shallower top strainer lined with cheese cloth. This seemed to prevent the overflow problem I was having with my strainer. I still would like to build a new mash/sparge setup but I haven’t had the time lately.

During the boil I added my pelleted hops as directed by the recipe in 15 minute increments. The one change-up I made was I added honey at the start of the boil on a whim. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen with that.

I still need to make a chiller too; for the time being I still use an ice bath to cool my hot wort.

I found my funnel and screen became clogged with hops when I poured the wort into the carboy. I had to stop and clear it twice to get the wort flowing again.

The other thing I noticed is that when I changed out my initial blow-off tube I had a hard crust of hops in the tube and around the neck of the carboy. The crust was blocking everything up. Usually I would leave it alone until I went to bottle but in this case it was so bad, about the thickness of a fist, that I had to clear it.

It’s a very cloudy, thick looking monstrosity at this point.

I’ll be bottling this Sunday…here’s hoping it turns out.