Brew day...TOMORROW!!!

Greetings beer lovers,

I like to drink beer, no doubt about it, but I REALLY like to brew my own beer (and drink it).  There's something about home brewing that just makes me feel...well...I guess traditional.  Brewing beer feels like getting back to my roots and when I have the chance to do it I'm just SO HAPPY.
Today I visited the local home brew shop, HopTech. Roberto and Jade are extremely knowledgeable, helpful and very, very cool.  If you're home brewing in the Bay Area I HIGHLY recommend HopTech.

Today I picked up the ingredients for a stout and since I was hoping to create a higher ABV for this brew (beyond 5.5...probably a 7 or 8) I worked with Jade and upped the malt extract.  Here's the recipe I'm brewing with Brian tomorrow:


The malts:

7.5 lbs of Dark Liquid Malt Extract
2.5 lbs of Amber Liquid Malt Extract

The grains:

1 lb Gambrinus Dark Munich
1 lb Hugh Baird Crystal Malt 50-60
1/4 lb Victory
1/2 lb Hugh Baird Roasted Barley
1/2 lb Hugh Baird Chocolate Malt
1/2 lb Muntons Black Patent

The hops:

2 oz Chinook pellet hops
1 oz Cascade pellet hops

Other ingredients:

Irish Moss
Priming sugar
Wyeast 1084XL Irish Ale yeast

I also picked up a wort chiller.

Needless to say I am super stoked about brewing tomorrow and I am hoping to be able to get batches going with more frequency.

We will see about that...

Cheers!

Mark Harvey