Colorado Kitchen Brew

While I've done my best to devote this blog to brewing inexpensively, I'm occasionally given a piece of gear that is a brewing luxury rather than a necessity. In this instance, my wife found an awesome deal on the BrewJacket Immersion Pro. Lo and behold, Christmas came, and one was waiting for me under the tree.   Before the Immersion entered my brewery (a.k.a. the kitchen and a basement storeroom), I had no way to control temps. Mercifully, the temperature in my storeroom stays between 65F(18C) and 70F(21C) all year. This has allowed me to brew ales for a long time without worrying about whether or not my beer was getting too hot or cold. What it also meant was that brewing lagers was out of the question, because there's nowhere in the room I can put a dedicated brewing fridge. That's no longer the case. Now I can brew cold enough to make lagers, and can also be more true to style with my Belgians by upping their fermentation temps. The full setup I was pleasantly surp...

While 2020 was easily my worst year ever, all of those weeks cooped up at home meant I had more time than usual to brew. One of my final brew days of 2020 was devoted to this Barleywine.  My beer is loosely based on various takes I found on Great Divide's Old Ruffian , which is a beer that used to be a regular member of their lineup. That's not the case anymore, which is why I decided to tackle my own.  The main area where I've diverged from what I came across online is with the specialty malts. I've bumped them all up just a tad. In addition, my homebrew store doesn't stock Crystal 80, so I went with Crystal 77. I'm fairly certain my hop schedule is different as well. To finish my beer off, I'll be adding an oak spiral toward the end of secondary fermentation. This beer won't be ready until mid April at the earliest, so I have quite the wait ahead. My 5 gallon brew is below: Grains: 17lbs Rahr 2-Row 12oz Crisp Crystal 77 12oz Briess Victory 8oz Briess F...