Brew With A Friend Day 2013

  Brew with a friend day is an American Homebrew Association event that happens the first Saturday every year in November.  The "Deer Island Brewers" Homebrew club has been hosting this event for a number of years now, along with "Big Brew Day", that is the first Saturday in May every year.  It is always a great time to get together and share Homebrew, talk Zymurgy speak and enjoy the pot luck that goes along with this event.  As usual, we brewed up a big batch on the Barrel and a half system here at the "Deer Island Homebrewery"  This year's beer was a India Red Ale.  We were going for a Hoppy, yet malt balanced Red Ale that is influenced by two great beers, Widmeres' Brrr and Sierra Nevada's Flipside India Red Ale.  As I write this, the portion of my Beer is still fermenting in the conical.  The Original Gravity was 1.064.  I had a trail batch on tap for the event that I brewed a few weeks before our event.  It was nice to sample what we were brewing, although I couldn't resist tweaking the recipe a bit for our group brew.  I think this beer will be a bit more Hoppy!   Also on hand for sampling were beers and Ciders such as Spiced Pumpkin Ale, Spiced Apple Cider and A candy corn Ale by Tim and Matt, a  peanut butter Chocolate Stout by Jeremy and Dwight, A Oak aged Imperial Stout by Alan plus Porter, Pale Ale and more.  A great time was had by all who attended.  All told we had 16 people attend this event.

A special thanks to Dennis Pruchniewski and others who watched the grant fill like a hawk and pumped wort to the kettle while I was goofing off!

Dennis P. stirs the tun after mashing in.  We mashed at 148 - 150* for this beer.

A wide view of the Brewery.  The hot tank is elevated for a gravity sparge.  The brew kettle to the right is on a stand that allows for room to run through a Hop Back, Counter flow wort chiller and aerator before going to carboys or conical.  Also Hops can be added from the brew platform and boil monitored from there as well.

Matt and Tim watch the wort runoff into the Grant from the mash tun.

I use a two part method of mashing.  We do a batch sparge first where I run off all the wort from the mash tun to the Brew kettle.  We collect about 20+ gallons of wort with this first run.  I then underlet the grain bed with 210* water, fill it up and stir.  This puts the mash temperature at about 162 - 168*, just right to begin sparging.  I let it set for about 15 min. then use a copper sparge ring to sprinkle 168* water over the top of the grain bed.  Then we run the wort off slowly into the grant and pump 4-5 gallons at a time to the brew kettle.

Dennis monitors the kettle fill.  We already have Hops in the kettle using a first wort hopping addition.

Just outside Dwight, Kevin, Gloria and Paula, enjoy sipping Homebrew and socializing.

At the other end of the building we had the food tables and Beer on tap in kegs.  This new area came in handy when the rain and wind kicked up that day.

Al, Paula and Tom discuss the finer points of Quark partical theory.....( huh? )

The kettle is full.  Dennis is making sure we don't have a boil over as we adjust the flame for a robust rolling boil.  This batch was a 40 gallon knock out.  We started with 48 gallons of wort to compensate for evaporation, wort shrinkage and equipment losses to arrive at our target yield.

Let the Beer Roll!  Out of the kettle at near boil to 66* through the chiller.

An overview of the beer run.  From the kettle into the Hop back, pump, counterflow wort chiller, aerator, then carboys and conical.

Ray fills the carboys and fermentor buckets for the people that took home a 5 gallon beer share.

And finally a group picture.  Missing is Ray, Julie, Kathy, Gloria and Paula who took the picture a bit early in the day

Cheers and Beers to all who make this a great get together brew event!

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