Rauchbier Brew Day

Well, you couldn’t ask for a better brew day than today. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

There was a little chill in the air when we got started ~10AM but the sun was bright and warm still.

I bought the RV water filter this week and used it for the first time with this brew:

We got the grains together including the smoked malt and some munich malt:

I did a single infusion mash and was able to keep the temperature around 154°F for the whole hour. After the mash, we got to the boil right away.

Since Rauchbier is basically an Oktoberfest with some smoked malt in it, it had a nice amber color. We popped open a beer while the boil was going.

It was a bottle of the pomegranate red ale. Yep, still tastes experimental.   After the boil was done, we had to chill it down to lager fermentation temperatures.  With a wort chiller and a kiddie pool, we got close….to around 52°F.

I think I will stay with brewing lagers in the dead of winter or until I get a better wort chilling solution.  It took a long time to get this beer down (close) to the temperature I wanted it to be.  It’s in the fridge for the next two weeks.  We shall see how things progress.