ESB trub from cold break

I brewed an ESB on Sunday. Everything went well, in fact, too well. Fermentation began in 5hrs and it's going strong now. I got the wort cooled from boiling to 65 in 12 minutes, not bad for using a ice bath IC. The following is some bad pics of the trub from the cold break. I couldn't get the bottom of the carboy because I put my carboy's in a crate for carrying, but the bottom was full of trub with about 3 inches of clear space in between. Now I need to brew every 2 weeks to keep this going! Cheers.

Saison's a bubbling

So it took about 5 hours for the Saison to start fermenting. I added some bottles of ice to keep fermentation at 68. It has been at 68 now for over 24 hours and bubbling great. The plan is to keep it that way until tomorrow, and then get it out of the bath and let it warm to room temp. Then after a day or so, in the garage it will go, and hopefully it will get hotter out so I can try and get 80. We'll see. Here's a pic of the carboy in the ice bath.

Saison

These are the pictures from my lastest brew. Had the help of Todd and Brian(holding the hose). Brian helped me make all of the new equipment....the kettle, lid and whirlpool wort chiller. Things went pretty smoothly, although the lightning strikes around us can't be seen. The power went out for a minute which made me appreciate the setup even more. Hopefully the beer turns out good.

Hops Gone Wild

Just got done picking some fresh hops from Frank's house. These babies are drying in the garage for future use. Thanks again Mr. Melvin.

July 27th

A full 6 days in on the Belgian Gold and it has gone from 1045 to 1018. Probably give it another week before I bottle. Tasted the hydrometer brew and I'm feeling pretty good about this one. Fermentation got a little warm on me. I was shooting for 68 all the way through, but with the heat from fermentation, it got to 72-74 for a day or two. It is now back down to 68, but will have to control this a little better in the future.

Belgian Gold

Recipe:

6 lbs Pilsen LME

.5 lbs Pilsen DME

.6 lbs Belgian Caramunich

.4 lbs Munich

Kent Goldings .9oz 60 mins

Saaz .5oz 30 mins

Saaz .5oz 15 mins

Yeast.....WLP550 Belgian Ale with 2L starter

Mistakes: Put the whirlfloc in at 20 mins instead of 10, Starting OG was 1045 instead of 1052. I believe that I didn't take into account for the 2L starter and this caused a little extra in volume, though it doesn't look like it's over 5 gallons. I need to remark my carboy since it came off. Other than that, it went perfect. After cooling wort and adding it to the ice water in the carboy, wort was 66 degrees. Fermentation began about 4 hours after adding yeast. Full "yeast-gone-wild" was about 12hrs. Fermentation temp was at 66-70 degrees. Above are the pics.