Been busy with work lately, so not much time for beer...much less posting here. I got my Cherry Wheat bottled up on Sunday after watching the Colts eek out a win on the road. I also racked my brown into secondary.

The wheat tasted great going into the bottle, and I can't wait to try one out in a few weeks!!!

Lots of things going on the weekends coming up so I'm not sure when I'll get to brew next. I'm pretty positive it will be a stout of some sort, just not sure what I'll do with it.

I got my scores in from my entries in the Michigan State Fair Homebrew Competition. My "Ohana" Pineapple Pale Ale scored a 31 in the fruit beer category. I was pretty pleased with this. The great thing about the competition is that I was fortunate to get a lot of really good feedback on my brewing. There are some changes that I will be making to really help the quality of my brewing. My Belgian Wit didn't fare quite as well, scoring a 25. One thing I got feedback from the judges on both beers was some oxidation, as well as some issues with Chlorine. Both pretty darned fixable.

AG batch #2 is in the books. Much easier and less stressful than the first batch. Everything went pretty well, and I even used the mash time to rack my wheat to the secondary. I couldn't resist adding cherries to it. I added 4lbs. after I had simmered them in 160' water for about 20 min.

But enough of the wheat. I'm pretty geeked about the brown that I just made. 8lbs of pale 2 row, 1/2 lb of crystal 60L, 1/2lb of crystal 120L, and just a hair less than 1/4lb of chocolate malt. Mashed at 153 for 70 min. I took 1 gallon of the first runnings and boiled it down to a tad under 1/2 gallon, and added it during the boil. I added 1oz of EKG at boil, and 1/2oz of cascade at 15 min. I pitched with WLP005 British Ale Yeast. Got good airlock bubblidge at 7 hours @ about 68'. I did manage to hit my OG this time at .051, and my volume was much much better. I have it calculated out that my efficency was about 72% and I'm pretty happy with that.