NCBB "Heavy Mellow" Stout

Greetings beer lovers,

Well, we did it.  Brian and I brewed a NICE one yesterday and after posting some photos of our "work" online my buddy Jay came up with a bunch of names, one of which I really liked...."Heavy Mellow Stout".  Hopefully Brian is OK with the name.  "Heavy Mellow" is a term that was coined to talk about the music on Nobody Records and since I combine all that I do - music, brewing, life - I figure the name is fitting.  This stout should be around 7.5% ABV when it is done so it will be a little heftier than a typical stout.

First step was to activate the yeast packet so we'd be ready to pitch it once we finished the boil. After I activated the yeast I create a mini-mash by soaked the grains in hot water for a half hour.  We filled up the kettle with five gallons of water and added the mini-mash grains to the rest of the grains in the grain bag.  We brought the heat up and let it steep until we reached 180 degrees.

We pulled the grain bag out, dunked it a few times, and let it drip until we had all the goodness out.

Then it was time to add the malt.

After we had the malt stirred in very well we added the first round of hops (Chinook pellet hops along with Irish moss).  We let that boil for 60 minutes.

Next we added 1/2 oz of Cascade pellet hops and let that boil for 20 more minutes and with 10 minutes left in the boil we added the remaining 1/2 oz of Cascade pellet hops.

We had a couple of boil overs, but overall we managed to keep the temperature at a good level.

The next step was to use the newly purchased wort chiller.  We hooked up the hose and watched as the temperature rapidly decreased.  Brian and I were really happy we got the temperature down so quickly.

We let the wort settle a little, pitched the yeast into the carboy and then moved the wort into the carboy for fermentation.

Now we wait for the fermentation process to commence and in about a week or so we will be ready to bottle.

Can't wait to taste this one!

Cheers!

Mark Harvey