Five-gallon beer - Saison - SMASH

Recipe is from the July issue of the Brew magazine.

Single malt and single hop.

This was our first attempt at brewing a five-gallon batch at home. It went a little rugged. It's an adventure. It took over five hours to complete.

Scribbled notes from my notebook:

• 4:02 p.m - 3.25 gal, 13 qts water on the burner

• 4:22 p.m. - water at 165 degrees

• 4:28 p.m. - finished adding 2-row, the only grain. begin mash. water temp going in was 170 degrees. after grain added, water temp was a little over 150 degrees.

• 5:23 p.m. - finally started to warm sparge water.

• 6:12 p.m. - sparge water at 170 degrees.

• 7:20 p.m. - done sparging. sparged for ~42 min.

• 7:28 p.m. - boil started.

• 9:23 p.m. - blow-off tube added at 9:23 p.m.

huge fireworks exploded around neighborhood during the late afternoon and evening hours. of course, we brewed outside. so the experience was miserable with the annoyingly loud noise.

after brewing, I took Barney for a two-hour drive to calm him and me down. We drove south of Findlay, turned round at the Ada / Ohio Northern University exit, stopped for a burger at McDonald's north of Findlay, and then came home.

#home - #beer