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Saturday, January 25, 2003

Da Tun is Done, Da Beer is Near

Dropped by the WeekEnd Brewer again today, and had Bob help (using his fully-functional hands) get the hosing/piping from the false bottom to the spigot installed, and he managed to get it all together and functioning like a champ. He actually needed the help of my one good hand at one point - the interior of a five-gallon cylindrical cooler does not have a lot of room to turn wrenches in!

Last night I knuckled down with a few web articles on Sahti, Designing Great Beers, and a slick little application called ProMash, and came up with what ought to be a faithful yet doable riff on the melody that is Sahti.

1½ lbs. rye malt, dark roasted (it's what Bob had)
1½ lbs. Cara-Pils Dextrine malt
½ lb. 20° Lovibond (a measure of roast darkness) Crystal malt
3 lb. German Pilsener malt
8¾ lb. light liquid malt extract

There's also an ounce of Czech Saaz hops to counter maltiness, a half-ounce of crushed & dried juniper berries, and (the coup de grace) trimmings from a tiny $1.00-clearance juniper tree (that I just snagged twenty minutes ago) in the bottom of the new mash/lauter tun as filtration.

Yep, I'm having a blast. I'm going to get myself set for the brew right now. I should finish by nine-ish tonight. :-)

-Rich

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