Electric Brewing

A little while ago I was looking at the idea of moving to a RIMS or HERMS system. I had started doing some stuff towards a RIMS system when I came across theelectricbrewery.com. This was exactly the thing I was looking for so I started selling off stuff and purchasing parts. The pics below are my progress so far. I still need to sell a bunch of my old brewing stuff before I can complete the build. Hopefully it'll happen soon so I can get back to brewing.

Smoky Smokerson (mini batch)

Ingredients-

Grain:
3.5 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
0.5 lb Special B
0.5 lb Smoked Malt
0.5 lb Crystal 40L

Hops:
1.5 oz Cascade @ 60
1 oz Cascade @ 30 
1 oz Cascade @ 5


OG: 1.061

Yeast: 1.056 Slurry

18JUN2012- Decided last minute to brew a small 2 gallon batch on my mini system. I felt like trying something smoky, may have gone a little overboard, we'll see.

Baby Drool IPA (10 Gallon Batch)

Ingredients-

Grain:
24 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
3 lbs Crystal 40L
2 lbs ESB malt

Hops:
2 oz CTZ @ 75
1 oz CTZ @ 30
3 oz CTZ @ 5
2 oz Citra @ 5
4 oz CTZ dry hop in Secondary for 7 days
4 oz Citra dry hop in tertiary for 7 days

Yeast: 1056 American Ale (slurry round 2)

OG: 1.072

Extras: 2 Small drops of pure baby drool

28MAY2012- My brother-in-law, Bryan, was running out of beer and since we both had memorial day off we decided to brew. Bryan was holding his daughter over the brew kettle to smell the hops when some drool fell out of her mouth and into the beer, hence the name. Everything went fantastic except when chilling the pump was starting to make some funny sounds. We let it run via gravity through the CFC while we took the pump apart. Even with proper rinsing it had gotten gummed up with too much sugar. Once cleaned thoroughly we put it back together and ran like a champ. Efficiency up  to 72% now. A little bit of recirculation fixed the problem. Can't wait to try it, but with the dry hop schedule it's gonna be a while longer than usual.

07JUN2012- Down to 1.014 for an ABV of 7.6%. Added 4 oz of CTZ and will let it sit til next week then add the Citra.

14JUN2012- 4oz of Citra added. No gravity taken. I'll wait one week and bottle half and keg the other half.

05JUL2012- Waited a little longer than I had planned to bottle but finally got it done. At least the first half anyway. This half was down to 1.010 for an ABV of 8.1%. Tastes really awesome, can't wait til it's carbed.

29JUL2012- This is the best IPA I have ever made!

Molasses Cider

Ingredients-

Fermentables:
4 Gallons TreeTop Apple Juice
12 oz Molasses (full flavor)

Yeast:
Red Star Pasteur Champagne

OG: 1.066

21MAY2012- Down to 1.012, transferred to keg.

IPA

 Ingredients-

Grain:
12 lbs 2 Row
1 lb Munich
1 lb Crystal 40L

Hops:
A lot of cascade and some nugget for bittering. I have no idea on the amounts.

Yeast: Wyeast 1056 American Ale (Brand new packet)

OG: 1.058

05MAY2012: This was done at BigBrew held on National Home Brew Day. It was really fun and there were a lot of people out. It's nice to have so many brewers together and to see all the cool system designs.
As far as my brewing for the day, things didn't go so well. Ended up with a stuck mash again and realized my new false bottom I had constructed was not very good. I ended up running to Ace, getting some supplies and building a new one on the fly. After that things went better but because of all the headache my efficiency on both brews was way down.

The picture here was actually early in the day and barely had anybody in it. The place was way more crowded later on and the other half of the parking lot not pictured was filled as well.

12MAY2012: Gravity down to 1.006 for an ABV of 6.5%. Transferred to keg and currently carbing.

15MAY2012: Carbed and pouring, had a glass this evening. Refreshingly citrus taste, smooth and easy drinking.  It tastes really good but I don't even know how to describe it. Even my wife likes it (she usually hates IPA's)

Double IPA

Ingredients-

Grain:
16 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
2 lbs Crystal 60L
1 lb ESB Malt

Hops:
I didn't write any of the hops down on this one, I think it was something like:
2.3 oz CTZ @ 60
2 oz CTZ @ 40
2 oz Cascade @10
3 oz Cascade @ 5
(rough guesses except the first addition, I remember that one.)

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 American Ale (brand new packet)

OG: 1.076

05MAY2012- Brewing didn't go so well this day, this was the second batch and went much smoother than the first. But I was kind tired and frustrated and wasn't super exact so my efficiency was super low.Oh well, 1.076 still makes a pretty good IIPA.

21MAY2012- Down to 1.012, transferred to keg.

Raspberry Ale (for Colin)

Ingredients:

Grain- 12 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt

Hops-
1 oz Cascade @ 60
1 oz Cascade @ 5

Yeast-
Safale-05American Ale (slurry round 1)

 OG- 1.066

15APR2012- Stuck mash totally sucked. I change my equipment around and tried not using the strainer, apparently that was a bad idea. Tried fly sparging this round and it worked great. Between fly sparging and mixing the mash better my efficiency is higher than is has been. Up to 76% now. This one is for Colin and Whitney, they came over to help and it was nice to have it since the mash stuck.

22APR2012- Down to 1.010 for an ABV of 7.3%. 19 oz of Raspberries added. The box said 24oz but I'm sure they just dried out a little bit after being packed. We'll let it sit for a week and then bottle.