Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I'm planning on brewing two batches this weekend: My plan is to brew a fairly big (not quite imperial) American Oatmeal Stout on Saturday. Then either Sunday or Monday brew another round of American Brown.

As usual, visitors welcome. Let me know if you're interested in coming over.

Randy ,
Did you brew on Sunday? If not, and you are brewing today, I'd like to see you mash-bag-in-cooler technique

Craig

Craig,
I opted to do both brews on Saturday, since the weather forecast for today was looking iffy. It was a long day of brewing to be sure. I ended up lower than expected efficiency this time and had to add DME to bring it back into range. I hope they end up tasting OK. Time will tell.

Here's the fruits of Saturday's labor: Am Stout on the left, Am Brown on the right.
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Here's a close up of the temp controller I built.
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Sorry I missed it. Those Look good. Are they in a min frig? The stout looks very dark Did you use chocolate or special B?

I did a 3 gal brown ale two Saturdays ago. I may have gone a little too dark for a brown because it is about the color of your stout. The OG was about 1.054. Twelve hours after I pitched the yeast fermentation was very vigorous... like a storm in the wort, and the airlock was bubbling continuously. It slowed down after 3 days, but it is still bubbling once every 10 seconds or so. I like the bronze color of the krausen. I Should be raking it into a secondary tomorrow. I probably brew another brown this week.

Craig

Craig,
My stout has some flaked oats, chocolate malt, roasted barley, and a touch of de-bittered black malt. It's going to be pitch black I think. The recipe is loosely based on the Founders Breakfast Stout, but without the chocolate and coffee added. The original recipe used regular black malt too I think, but after the tasting we did at the tech meeting I decided I didn't want that in my beer. Yuck! I ended up missing my OG by a fair amount, so I really need to get my efficiency up.

Yes, those are in a mini "wine fridge" I had on hand. It's a pretty tight squeeze getting both 3 gallon carboys in there.

I wouldn't worry over much about the color of your brown ale. The style allows for a very large range, up to 35 SRM which is very dark. Mine is on the lower end of the range, according to the estimate given by Beer Smith. We'll see where it really comes in...