Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar is one of Jess’ favorite beers, and mine too. Jess asked if we could brew it next, so I went looking for a clone recipe. I was excited when I came across this thread, because here was a poster who claimed to have *the* recipe. Unfortunately, as I dug . . . → Read More: Brew Day: Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar
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I’ll let you all know how it goes. Wish me luck! . . . → Read More: Flying By the Seat of My Pants
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It’s brew day! I made no Brew Day Plan for this week. I feel like I’m dialing in on my process, so I want to test it. We’re brewing up a clone of Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar today. Jess chose the beer; it’s one of her favorites.
Last night, I drank two bottles of Hop Truck IPA that I brewed with my neighbor, Logan, back in October, and I didn’t really want another one. I thought the beer had some off flavors, and I just wasn’t enjoying it as much as I’d hoped. It’s the result of an extract kit that I bought from my local brew shop, Great Fermentations. So tonight, I decided to take a bottle there to see if they could help me figure out what went wrong. 
I didn’t plan it this way. Truthfully, when I brewed last Monday, it was just because I wanted to brew. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I brewed an extract recipe. It was only afterward that I decided to try an all-grain version of that same recipe. I want to do a taste test between the extract and all-grain versions. OK, so technically, it’s a partial mash. But I didn’t use much extract. 
I have modified my plan from last time I brewed all-grain. I’ve moved some things around based on experience, and dropped some unnecessary instructions. (i.e. things I won’t forget) Also, I have recalculated the temps and such to match brew day conditions and my desired mash temp (a little lower this time, 151-152, hoping for a dryer beer) 
It seems a lot of people are brewing in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. today. There were four cars (including myself) lined up at the brew shop at 10:55 AM, waiting for them to open at 11. I decided to brew an extract brew today, to save some time and trouble. I was just itching to fill at least one of my empty fermenters after bottling everything on Friday. 
Whew! That was a long night. Wes came over Friday evening around 9 PM, and I managed to talk him into bottling up some beer with me. I had five gallons (actually more like 4.75) of Hop Truck IPA, an extract/steeping kit from my local home brew shop, and ten gallons (well, more like 9) of Dark Chocolate Stout to bottle. We ended up filling 48 bottles of Hop Truck and 89 bottles of Dark Chocolate Stout. 
It’s a little more than a week after 
Considering that this was my first time brewing all-grain, brew day was a smashing success. Everything went pretty smoothly, and all of my tools worked well. Jess was a big help, and she did a great job taking pictures of all the activity. Wes was able to join us for the last part of the boil and to help clean up. Brew day did take a bit longer than expected. I was expecting about 5 hours; it ended up taking 7.5. I’m sure this will improve as I refine my process. The recipe loosely follows 
I sat down and made a set of instructions for brew day. I think it helped me to really think through how the process is going to go. I hope that this will prevent me from having to scramble on brew day. It will be my first all-grain batch this weekend with a lot of new equipment, so there is definitely a risk of scramblage.