First brew of the season tomorrow.
Just a quick and simple IPA, Gold LME, with a little bit of biscuit malt thrown in, Chinook leaf for bittering (that I grew myself), and a bunch of Centennial for aroma and flavor.
Will be the first time using my Fast Ferment that I got for Xmas as well!
Thought the yeast was old (it was, harvested back in July), put it in a starter 3 days before brew day....and nothing in the starter vessel at all. But pitched it anyway. Didn't seem to be any activity in the airlock at all, so went and bought a fresh pack of 1056 and pitched it. Much to my surprise (after dumping the ball on the fast ferment), there was a small krausen on the beer from the old yeast(smelled wonderful), but by that time I had already smacked the Wyeast pack, and dumped the collection ball. Oh well, live and learn I guess.
When putting the cover on the fast ferment on brew day, I somehow misplaced the silicon O ring for the top cover. No where to be seen, thought maybe that it fell into the FF, but you would have thought it would have floated. Saw nothing so had to improvise. Took a large freezer bag, cut it in half and then put it over the mouth of the FF, screwed the cover on.
Thought Noble Grape would have them, since they sell the FF...but alas no, they have to order them from Halifax. Common part that gets wrecked or lost (according to some other forums) you would think they would stock a few. Ahh well, will have them for next time. Just hope the freezer bag plastic is providing enough of a seal for the top.
Also, the brew ended up with Cascade instead of Centennial. For whatever reason I thought the bines my friend gave me were Centennial, turned out to be Cascade. So oz of Chinook for bittering, 2oz of Cascade at 10mins, and then 2.5oz of Cascade in a 30min hop stand.
I didn't want the hop leaves to clog up the pot (despite it having a bazooka filter on the valve), so I put them in muslin bags.......accept of course they floated...so hoping they sat enough in the hot wort to do something with.
I was planning on dry hopping with Centennial (when I thought I had centennial leaf hops that turned out to be cascade), now I don't know. I do have centennial pellets I can use, just not sure if I want to now. Might just take a sample before I do that and see if I think it needs it.