Today was wort pick up day for the NBC Wort Transformation Challenge. So, i guess technically, yesterday was brew day for these beers. As stated in previous posts, I have 2 entries for the challenge. I took 2 cleaned and sanitized carboys to the NBC Tap Room/Brew house to get the wort. Checked in, had a quick beer and then lugged the glass jugs back to get filled. They brewed up a 30 bbl batch (bbl is a beer barrel measure. One bbl is about 26 US gallons. So this was about a 774 gallon batch.) It was very cool to be back in a professional brewery, i cannot imagine brewing on that scale.
Loaded my 10 gallons back into the car and headed home. I was solo for this transport and I liken it to the day I drove my wife and first born home from the hospital. Slow, precise and way to over cautious around turns and bumps.
Brew 1: Belgian-American Tart Apricot Ale
The first beer, I didn't alter much. I added in 1 pound of D-45 Belgian Candi syrup, pitched the yeast, aerated as put in temperature control. The addition of the candi syrup did darken the wort a bit. It will be interesting to see the final color.Original Gravity: 1.065
Target Final Gravity: 1.010
Estimated ABV: 7.0%
IBU: 30
Brew 2: Midwest Tropics IPA
The second beer, was a bit more ambitious. For this one i took 2 gallons of wort, added in 3/4 of a gallon of water and brought it to a boil. Once boiling, I added DME and an ounce of Nugget hops sourced from Midwest Hop Producers. Boiled that for 30 minutes, cooled it down and added it back to the carboy. I pitched my 1.5 liter WLP644 starter. Aerated and put next to it's sibling in the ghetto temp control.
Original Gravity: 1.063
Target Final Gravity: 1.008
Estimated ABV: 7.0%
IBU: 60
