English or Scottish Pale Ale

The last grain order I placed I picked up a sack of Thomas Faucet Golden Promise malt in addition to the regular Thomas Faucet Maris Otter. I decided to do a double brew day yesterday and made the same Pale Ale but one mash would have the Maris Otter and the other would have Golden Promise.
I then split each one of those batches and pitched two different yeast - the normal WLP002 (Fuller strain) and WLP023 (Burton).  Based on previous experiments (Hefeweizen) I could end up with four different beers. Brew day was uneventful, just long...

While the first beer was chilling and the second beer was mashing, I ran out to get some ice so I could chill the second beer. I went to Wegman's to pick up ice, a couple Tritip roasts and then (wth) I grabbed a couple size packs. I have over 50 gallons a beer in the garage and none ready to drink. The first six pack was a Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA and the other was Acme IPA. Firestone is a great beer and I had to get the Acme because of the label.

Still waiting on one review or the Hefeweizen and I'll publish the results.

Fermenter experiment

I received feedback from Jamil Zainasheff and David Houseman on the Hefeweizen fermenter experiment. I'm waiting on Gordon Strong and I'll write everything up.
Jamil suggested a Brewstrong episode and Gordon suggested I write an article for  Zymurgy on the subject.

I'll write everything up and copy everyone and see if they think it has merit.

Blitzkrieg Mild - Father's Day

 I woke up early to brew on Father's Day. The goal was to brew a nice little mild, add some invert sugar late in the boil, and a ton of Fuggle hops late in the boil.

I set up the night before so all I had to do was wake up, heat water and mash.

Sounds like the best laid plans right?

The mash went fine as well as the boil. I decided to use my hop rocket in a new configuration - before the pump instead of after the pump - aka Tasty McDole style.  I used the hop rocket so I would be chilling with the counterflow chiller instead of the immersion chiller. Since the ground water was hot I decided to pump ice water through the chiller instead of just using the hose. Here's where things started to go wrong. 

First, I had the wrong fitting on the counterflow chiller and had to use the hose instead of the ice water.

Then I couldn't get the pump primed, then wort starts leaking  out one of the hoses. I fix the leak, and get the pump primed but spill boiling wort on my hand. The pickup tube in the kettle must have been moved so I left 1.5 gallons in the kettle. At this point I just want to get the beer in the fermenter because my parents are coming over for dinner.  Wort in the fermenter and I start to aerate the wort then my diffusion stone drops in the conical.

Ok, this batch is just a mess.
Blitzkrieg Mild seems like an appropriate name for this beer.

I checked the conical in the morning and I something ia fermenting.

I checked the conical tonight - day 2 of fermenting and the beer is @ 1.012. I can taste the invert sugar but the beer tastes a bit thin. I had amber malt in this recipe along with crystal, dark crystal, invert and maris otter. 

The process making this mild may have been a mess, but I like where this recipe could go.