Barley Legal Big Brew Day @ Cork

Last weekend it was time to bring my brewing rig on the road. Both local homebrew shop BYOB and restaurant Cork teamed up to host a brew day in Westmont. The South Jersey homebrew club Barley Legal helped organize the event and got there as early as 8am to start brewing. I got there around 10 and set up my modest partial mash setup compared to some of these other massive all grain stands. It was awesome to see the different styles everyone had.

Overall I counted about 20 people brewing and at least 80 gallons of beer brewed. I decided to do a 5 gallon partial boil/partial mash pale ale. The recipe I used was Kabes Secret APA. The idea of using honey malt in an pale ale sounded good to me. I stayed pretty true to the recipe, but couldn't resist adding some Mt. Hood hops I had left over 40 minutes into the boil.

The first road trip wasn't as successful as I'd hoped. My mash temp was lower than I wanted and average around 145F. I tried heating and adding some water to raise the temperature, but couldn't get it past 150F. Then I got to experience my first stuck sparge. The weight of the grain must have crushed the stainless steel braid. It might be time to either rethink my design or buy a prefabricated one. All things considered, the batch is bubbling away right now. RDWHAHB... Here's a couple cell phone shots:

Special Thanks to:

Brett from BYOB for supplying some 2-Row, equipment and organizing
Kevin and Cork for hosting
Flying Fish and Iron Hill Brewery for supplying the yeast
Evan for the Maris Otter and the motor

It was great to try some tasty homebrews and meet some of you guys! Looking forward to the Spring Group Brew.