Here's the recipe and some picture of my homebrewing 1st year anniversary beer. It's a chocolate/blueberries russian imperial stout. I brewed it this weekend and plan to serve it on tap at the june meeting. One failed step however, it's fermenting at 25-26c actually. I still have to find a way to "fetch" the fridge I bought at the March meeting :).
On a final note, this beer was my test bed for my upgraded system.

La Perle Noire
Russian Imperial Stout

Type: All Grain
Date: 2009-03-21
Batch Size: 23,00 L
Brewer: Épique ou rien
Boil Size: 31,77 L
Boil Time: 80 min

Mike Ward visit me on my second brewed batch on my very new RIG. We actually brewed the batch together and split.

We modified a recipe named "Angry Ogre Ale" from BeerSmith recipes package and fitted it with a Amarillo we got from Benoit just a week before. It's a ~1.080 OG sporting a ~90ish IBU. It is supposed to reach close to 8% ABV.

We haven't correctly account for this massive whole/leaf hop volume and got way less cool wort than expected. Photos says it all...

Brine the brisket:
In 4 litres of water dissolve 450 grams of Kosher salt, 100 grams of sugar, then added 3 cloves of galrlic sliced, 2 tablespoons of home made pickling spice (see below) and 1.5 tbsps of Salt Petre (sometimes I don't add it - this time I did).
- Wait until brine is cold then put the brisket in and refrigerate for 10 days. Make sure the brisket is fully submerged in the brine. Weigh it down with a plate if you have to.

- Every other day, turn the brisket to ensure it gets well- brined.

Here is the beer list that I made since october 2006. I will try to update as much as i can.

35)Belgian Dubbel 8%
40)Belgian sour cherry dubbel 8%
37)Barbados rhum black strap mollasses, oak age stout 7%
41)Belgian Quadruple 9%
42)Dry super saison with wheat 8%
43)Purple Haze, black berry, blue berry and rasberry 6%
44)Imperial pale ale galena chinook and centenial for dry hoping 8%
45)Wheat Grand Cru 12% no carbonation possibly infected
46)Strawberry Feild Forever 6%
47)souther brown ale 6%
48)Northern Brown ale 5%
49)Extra special bitter 6%
50)Pale ale 5%
51)Alt 5%

I just wanted to share with all of you what happenned to me 2 weeks ago. I was visiting my girlfriend who lives in Quebec city and she was working all weekend so I was free to roam around for the afternoon.

I enjoyed the July meeting on the terrace at Ale-X's place in Laval. Alex served two Mild's. It was the first time I had tasted Alex's beer. Based on his reputation I was half expecting something resembling blue cheese in a beer glass, but his beers were normal and quite nice.

The Binford brew day had finally happen at Mike Ward's home brewery this Sunday.

It all start pretty smoothly at first with reviewing the recipe and starting to weight the grain. While I was at this task, Mike begin having problem with the propane burner system. It turned out the regular was faulty. We gave the regulator a ride in the car (Mike's Jaguar) and, along with that, a little hand massage, some shaking, some swearing... the regulator manage to work properly when we tried it again back at Mike's brewery. At least an hour lost...

Today, I finally got around to buying a copy of BeerAlchemy. I've been using it for about 6 months, and their registration algorithm finally stopped letting me play for free (I guess there was a bug in it until about 30 days ago (-; ).

Welly welly well... it appears I still know how to brew. After much agonizing about doing a lager, and stressing out about the long lagtime associated with such a beast, I decided to get back to basics and brew a nice British Ale with my new yeast - WY 005.

Getting the brew kit together after a long year and a move was painful, but I made a 1 liter starter, gave it 2 days to fully ferment, and brewed on the 13th of March 08. Used some old Centennial and EKG hops to 40 IBU and had a grain bill of 6 kg M.O. 2 row, 2 kg Munich and .367 60/70 Crystal. Don't ask why! ;-)

After the successful addition of a pump to my brewery, it got me thinking that I'm experienced enough now to be able to pipeline my brewing day and speed it up significantly. So I made a plan:

0:00

- assemble HLT (add easymasher in advance!)
- fill HLT and begin heating mash water to 170f
- assemble mash tun (don't forget easymasher!)
- mill grains (base malt last!)
- stir grains to distribute evenly
- clean mill

0:30

- water ready @ ~172f (depending on grain and mash temp)
- dough in (either using 1/2 gallon jug, small pots or pump)
- cover mash tun with towel