Happy birthday USA!  I'm going to celebrate by brewing, and yes even writing about the ESB (Extra Special Bitter).  Given that it's 10:00am and 91° and humid it's dubbed Heatwave.  This is disgusting weather, too bad I can't (well, shouldn't) burn propane inside otherwise I'd be in the basement doing this instead of sweating like a pig on the patio.  Oh well, I love the outdoors, hence the name of the brewery!

Just like most brew days, this beer really started last night.  I crushed the 11 1/2# of grain and took some notes to get ready for the morning.  Then a few members of the tasting panel came over and we sampled beers for a few hours.  A quick night of sleep, some water, coffee, and ibuprofen and here we are.

8:00am - Pre-heat mash tun by filling the cooler with hot water.  This helps maintain mash temperatures by minimizing heat loss to the walls of the cooler.  Again, I'm a nerd, but this helps produce quality beer.
8:05am - Start heating strike water.
8:30am - Mash in.
9:20am - Start heating first sparge water.
9:35am - Take first runnings and dump sparge #1 into mash tun.
9:45am - Collect 2nd runnings and dump sparge #2 into mash tun.
10:00am - Full volume in brew kettle.  Yes, I'm sweating like crazy at this point.  I'm sitting near an open flame when it's 91° outside.
10:15am - Boil starts!
10:20am - Add bittering hops.  Now that the lid is off the kettle I have to be on the spot with driving bees away since they're very attracted to the sweet wort.  But I don't want them falling to their death in 7 gallons of boiling liquid.
10:30am - Give a friend's phone back that he left here last night. I guess a case of homebrew and 2/3 bottle of bourbon is enough for one night...
10:50am - Add flavoring hops, round 1.
11:00am - Add flavoring hops, round 2.
11:15am - Add aroma hops.
11:20am - Flame out, and start to cool wort.
12:30pm - Pitch Yeast and start cleanup.  

5-gallon brew days are a lot less stress and work than 10-gallon days.  Now that we're all set it's time to go drink some homebrews, grill out, sit by the pool, go boating, and watch some people blow stuff up.  God bless the USA!
11/16/2022 11:04:16 am

Loved reading this thhank you

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