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Batches Made

This page chronicles the batches of beer, wine, and mead I've made in my quest to perfect my home brewing skills. As you'll see below, I've made over 204 batches of beer to date (that I have notes for), both extract and all-grain. I've made these with as basic a setup as a sous vide cooker and induction cooktop.  I've also brewed on a RIMS system (The Grainfather), two automated systems (PicoBrew Zymatic and Brewie+), the brew-on-premise setup at North High Brewing, and even helped brew a batch on the 10-barrel system at Barley's Ale House #1.

Batches made in 2022 so far (3 total):
  • January 02, 2022:  St. Gambrinus Spiced Holiday/Christmas Ale Kit (5 gallons)
  • January 03, 2022:  Pecan Brandy Mead (5 gallons)
  • January 16, 2022:  High-Corn Mash Test (4 gallons) - found some very old flaked corn (from 2019), Pale Ale Malt, and Rye. Made a practice mash to test conversion calculations and tweaks to my grain mill.

Batches made in 2021 (20 total):
  • January 13, 2021:  Chinese Style Rice Wine made with Angel Yeast (5 gallons)
  • February 16, 2021:  Rice Wine 2.0 made with Angel Yeast (5 gallons)
  • February 28, 2021:  Rice Wine 3.0 made with Angel Yeast (5 gallons)
  • March 11, 2021:  Rice Wine 4.0 made with Angel Yeast (5 gallons)
  • April 3, 2021:  Rice Wine 5.0 made with Angel Yeast (5 gallons)
  • April 3, 2021:  Mandarin Orange Wine 1.0 (5.5 gallons)
  • April 17, 2021:  Rye Pale Ale 1.0 with XJA/436 Hops  (3 gallons)
  • May 9, 2021:  Rice Wine 6.0 made with Angel Yeast (6 gallons)
  • May 9, 2021:  Rice Wine 7.0 made with Angel Yeast (6 gallons)
  • May 16, 2021:  High-rye Mash Test (6 gallons) using up some "expired" grains to test mash efficiency in a mash with a high level of rye malt
  • June 27, 2021:  Brewer's Best Digital Haze IPA kit (5 gallons)
  • August 9, 2021:  Barleywine 2021 Batch 12 (3.5 gallons)
  • August 22, 2021:  Belgian Dark Strong Ale (3 gallons)
  • August 22, 2021:  Experimental Multi-Grain Mash (6 gallons) including Rye, Flaked Maize, and Barley to produce a mash that would ferment to around 11.9% ABV, using some expired grain to test mash efficiency improvements
  • August 29, 2021:  Corn Tripel 1.0 (3 gallons)
  • September 19, 2021:  High-corn test mash to get rid of some expired grain and corn
  • September 27, 2021:  English Dark Mild Ale (3 gallons)
  • September 29, 2021:  High-Oat test mash to get rid of some expired flaked oats, corn, barley, and other items.
  • November 14, 2021:  Horseman's Pumpkin Ale, 5 gallons split into two batches, one oaked and one not oaked.
Batches made in 2020 (31 total):
Batches made in 2019 (27 total):
Batches made in 2018 (48 total):
Batches made in 2017 (36 total):

Batches made in 2016 (17 total):
Batches made in 2015 (15 total):
  • 1/1/2015:  Bourbon Barrel Belgian Amber Ale - an experiment using Aromatic malt, Crystal 60L, Munich LME, Rice Solids, Amber DME, Biscuit malt, whole Cascade hops, Czech Saaz Pellets, and Bourbon Barrel chunks in the boil
  • 5/15:  First all-grain attempt using Midwest Supplies Monk's Cowl Belgian Ale kit.  One gallon batch.  Didn't like it.
  • 6/5/15:  Third attempt at an extract based Tripel.  Came out at over 11% ABV.  Poured flat out of the bottle, and assume the yeast burned itself out.
  • 6/13/15:  Belgian Dubbel extract based beer, based on a kit from Adventures in Homebrewing that I modified.  Turned out better than many previous beers.  
  • 7/25/15:  Belgian Abbey Single from an E.C. Kraus recipe.  One of the best and most popular beers I've made.
  • 8/15:  Pliny the Elder clone from an extract-based kit sold by MoreBeer.  It's been very popular with family members who are IPA fanatics and others who like hoppier styles.  I've never had the original so I can't tell you how close this comes to the real thing.
  • 8/30/15:  Adventures in Homebrewing Gingerbread Brown Ale kit.
  • 9/2/15:  First full-size all-grain beer, an ESB that started out as a 1933 JW Lees bitter recipe but modified with some last-minute substitutions.  Turned out reasonably well, but some of the bottle caps didn't seal well and many of the bottles came out flat as a result.
  • 9/20/15:  Second full-size all-grain beer, a Belgian Tripel made with barley, wheat, and oat.  This, to be honest, was a disaster. I needed to add rice hulls and didn't know it, so I had a terrible time with RIMS recirculation, draining, and sparging.  
  • November 2015:  Belgian Abbey Single version 1.1, modified from the E.C. Kraus recipe.  This got much closer to what I wanted, but I need to dial back a couple of the specialty grains in the next iteration.
  • November 2015:  Northy 12 kit from Northern Brewer, a clone of Westvleteren XII from Belgium.  I had issues getting the final volume and gravity where I needed them, and due to the hops bags dropping to the bottom of the kettle I couldn't extract them and boil down the wort, so it wound up weaker than I hoped.
  • November 5, 2015: Adventures in Homebrewing Peanut Butter Conspiracy Stout kit.
  • December 2015:  Experimented with three ciders and an American Ale yeast strain. Two of the three resulted in sweet but very drinkable ciders.  The third resulted in a vinegary one that will probably end up dumped.
Batches made in 2014 (5+ total):
  • 8/9/14:  A Belgian Strong Dark Ale of my own design - OK but nothing to brag about
  • 8/24/14:  Belgian Tripel using Munich LME, Pilsner LME, Camdi Sugar, and D45 with UK Fuggles and Saaz
  • 9/14:  EdWort's Apfelwein
  • 12/13/14:  Clone Brews Gulden Draak Recipe brewed with yeast harvested from their beer
  • 12/28/14:  Scaldis Noel Clone from Clone Brews - I didn't let this ferment long enough before bottling and even months later it was disgustingly sugary.  Lesson learned to monitor fermentation and let beers get to final gravity.
Prior to late 2014, I didn't keep detailed records, so these are from memory and in the approximate order I brewed them:
  • Mr. Beer's Black Tower Porter Extract-only Kit
  • Mr. Beer's IPA Kit with molasses added
  • Mr. Beer's Wheat Beer with honey added - turned out really great
  • Mr. Beer's Black Tower Porter kit with added fermentables
  • Mr. Beer's Black Tower Porter kit with unsweetened chocolate and sugar added
  • North High Brewing's on-premise Tripel recipe, made on their equipment
  • My modified version of the North High Tripel recipe with Czech Saaz and Hallertau hops in place of the UK East Kent Goldings, fermented in the Mr. Beer kit
  • A concoction of my own design using some hopped extract I had on-hand and a Belgian yeast strain, which turned out so sugary I had to dump it.  Lesson learned - I need more hops than I think I do.
  • (Somewhere around here I ditched the Mr. Beer gear and got some more-traditional home brewing apparatus, including 6.5 gallon fermenting buckets, an 8-gallon Mega Pot kettle, etc.)






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2022 Batch 01 - St. Gambrinus Spiced Holiday Ale (Kit)

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2021 Batch 16/17 - Horseman's Pumpkin Ale Kit from Great Fermentations

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2022 Batch 02 - Pecan Brandy Mead

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