Singles Night

The final brew of 2010 will be done on New Year's Eve.

It's slightly later than I would have liked, as the beer needs to be ready for the January meeting of the North Hants Brewers. It's singles night. One malt, one hop.

I'm going to use 100% Pilsner Malt. The hop proved a bit of a quandry. I was going to use the First Gold hops I harvested from the allotment three months ago. Then, I received a nice bottle of beer from my stepson at Christmas. According to the label it was 100% Challenger. All I know, it was 100% loverly. I know it's not summer, but I like to brew what I like to drink, and if my beer comes out anything like Skew, I'll be happy. So Challenger it is.

As it's one hop, I've decided to experirment with the additions - I'm going to try to obtain an equal level of IBU's from each of three hop additions.

I'll use Beersmith to help me with that part of the exercise. It will mean small quantities at the start of the boil and much bigger additions at 15mins and 1min from the end.

Being New Year's Eve it will be a boozy brewday with the music cranked up as a loud farewell, and a two fingered salute, to a miserable 2010.

New Brewery

It's arrived!

Trouble is, I can't use it just yet, as I'm waiting for the electrics to be sorted out. I guess I could have got that sorted while I was awaiting delivery but, to be honest, I wasn't sure if the unit was going to fit where I had planned for it to go. As it happens, there's just enough clearance from the garage door (you can just see it in the top of the photo), so it would have been fine.

It looks pretty good on that awful floor. I'm itching to get some water in there so I can start playing with the pump so I can get used to all the valves and stuff. At the moment I'm thinking the plastic bucket routine I'm familiar with is far simpler, but I guess it will be fine once I've got used to it.

I'm not expecting to make better beer, but it will save me taking over the kitchen for seven hours and also save my back from lots of lifting. I'm also hoping my efficiency will improve slightly as it was pretty poor using the grain bag and plastic bucket method.

As promised, in return for her consideration, I'm going to have to buy the wife a new bag. Now, do I do that before the electrics are done, or make her wait until I'm up and running?