So I headed over to Austin Homebrew and thumbed through their catalog looking for something that would complement that Pale Ale. I landed on a Northwest Cascadian Dark Ale, a nice, hoppy, dark beer that would compare and contrast nicely!
For the second time, I brewed again with my brother-in-law, Josh. Still pretty hot in Austin, we opted to brew indoors again, in his kitchen. And I got some quality time with my daughter while Mom got a few hours off.
We found that drawing 10 gallons of filtered water (5 for each of us) from Josh's fridge just took way too long. So instead, we each bought a 5-gallon jug of water at the grocery story.
This time, I bought my own glass carboy. I found the plastic bucket a little difficult to deal with, getting the top on and off. The original specific gravity was 1.055. Josh actually brewed his first Pilsner Lager (on the right), as he's breaking in his new deep freezer for lagering.
I had a minor blowoff and a bit of a mess in my fermenting closet. A little too much activity for the rubber-bung-and-stopper valve on this carboy. I switched to a tube in my batch and that worked much better! Rookie mistake ;-)
I kegged this one after about 3 weeks in a primary fermenter (no secondary, again).
It took quite a while to carbonate (at least a week). Once carbonated, though, it turned out quite nice. Very smooth, but also very dark and hoppy.
:-Dustin
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