Brew Day

Over the weekend the DSBC embarked on its first brewing endeavor. We (most of us supremely unexperienced) were guided by the wonderful Dave of East Atlanta Brewery. We began our journey a little over a month ago when we held a monthly meeting at Rupesh's house and tried a collection of Stouts. Dave came to talk to us about making a beer and gave us a run down of various resources like The Homebrewers Association and their Zymurgy magazine as well as the Beer Judge Certification Program and style guidelines. Dave takes his exam in less than 2 weeks.

Good luck Dave!!!

Since we were in a stout-y mood we all thought it would be cool to brew the style that we liked the best that night, the Russian Imperial Stout. This was to be the biggest beer that Dave and EAB had ever put together. This past Saturday Dave, Brennan and I headed down to Just Brew It! south of Atlanta in Fayetteville, GA. The experience was pretty cool. We got to measure out and mill the ingredients for the beer. We left with 50lbs of grain and a mash tun of great expectations. Brennan and I headed back to Daves to sample EAB's excellent Wee Heavy Scotch Ale and familiarize ourselves with the operation.

Sunday morning was the actual brewing and the temperature at the beginning of the day was around 18. This was to be not only the biggest beer EAB ever made but also the coldest they'd ever brewed. Dave and I fired up a turkey-frier burner to thaw the water line outside. Once that was working, the dog got out and everyone who was there got into a car and scanned the neighborhood til we found her. Luckily that only took about 10 minutes. Then Dave had to run to the store to buy some other parts so that we could connect the water purifier to the hose. We sprayed the lawn (ice) in the meantime to make sure that the hoses didn't freeze again. Once the water was flowing and heated we began to dump in the grain and thisis when the trouble-shooting really began. After getting all of the grain into the mash tun we realized just how much we were pushing the limits of EAB's system with this brew. We kept trying to let some of the wort out so that we could have more room to mix but the filter at the bottom of the tun was getting stopped up. Numerous methods were employed to get it to work. Extra barrels were brought in, the screen at the bottom was taken off (it had to be bent back to its original shape), a cooler full of wort was also used as an intermediary, and rice hulls were procured. This kind of all-hands-on-deck brewing added a lot of our group's essence to the wort, and took much longer than expected. By around 4:30 we were getting our boil on and sometime later that night everything made it into the fermenters. The whole day was a sight to see and quite an experience. Thanks to everyone, including Ben's entire family, for coming out to help and be a part of it. Now we just wait and then drink.


To quote Dave on the progress thusfar:
We have a good fermentation! I just got back from congratulating our little yeasties for getting off to a good start. They seem happy and although a few of them had a case of the Mondays, they promise to get the job done. After speaking with their union rep, Dr Zymy McBubbles, I can report that they plan on getting our malted barley hop water to around 10% ABV. Dr. McBubbles reports that about 30 billion yeast cells are currently at work in each fermentor and by the time the job is finished we may well have over 100 billion workers. The Dr and I are planning on starting an army after our workers are finished and taking over the world. Resistance (to good beer) is futile!