Brown Ale, competition results

Last weekend we brewed a Brown Ale. This weekend we got the results from our first homebrew competition. The Brown Ale turned out to be a bit of a trial because of some mistakes during brewing but it came out ok. We just transferred it to secondary fermentation and it tastes pretty good. I’m excited to see what it’s like cold and carbonated. For our fellow homebrewers the recipe is here.

The competition was in St. Louis so we sent our beers off and had to wait until Saturday for the results. I’m happy to say the Milksteak Stout took third place out of 32 Stouts! We’re pumped about the result and planning on sending more entries to more competitions soon.

Here are some photos of brewing the brown ale starting with a yeast starter.





In the middle of brewing we transfered the American Slammer Jammer to secondary fermentation.

This is the new look of our old keggle. We added a sight glass for accurate volume measurements, and an angled inlet for whirlpooling during the cooling process. That means while we pump the wort through the plate chiller and back in to the keggle it will cause a large whirlpool. After settling, the solids will be collected in a cone in the middle, allowing us to pull the wort away from the solids.

We’re hoping to keg the brown ale and American Slammer Jammer soon. I’ll update you when we do with some tasting notes.