Veterans Day at Lodge Tonight

I did get the beer brewed this morning. The smells are still wafting through the air. I'm sure Mo is not going to be especially happy when she gets home and it still smells like wort. Although the wort was smelling pretty pumpkiny. Only difficulties I ran into was during the mini mash process, in that I was having problems maintaining the temperature. Seemed like it would either get too hot or drop faster than anticipated. It was a LOT of grain. Happy that I purchased a large nylon bag for the grain and pumpkin. After the mini mash, the pumpkin ended up back in the fridge (I'll make pies tomorrow) and the used grain ended up on the compost heap.

This was the first time I used a liquid yeast and it was pretty sweet. Had to start the yeast prior to starting the brewing so there was enough time for the yeast to activate. The package plumped up and it was ready to go in about 3 years.

After the brewing was done and during the clean up, you always want to make sure of disposing of the hops safely. If you have dogs, it is not safe to dispose of the used hops anywhere when the dogs can get at them. If they were to consume the hops, your dogs would be dead in a matter of hours.

And on that note, I did get a chance to my new pot for brewing. Well, the only problem with it that it is so big that I would not have been able to submerge the grains and pumpkin during the mini mash. So, it was back to the old 3 gallon pot. Did the mini mash in the 3 gallon pot and moved everything up to the big pot for the boil. It took about 4.5 hours from start to finish. Still working on getting the clean up finished. :)

Note from the lodge mail list that came today:

Brethren,

Tonight we gather at our Masonic Lodge to honor our Veterans. Those of you who served would you please wear your colors, pins, medals, orany other items.

There is no degree work tonight and I hope that we will have sometime to hear some stories from our honorable Brethren who served inthe military. We are truly lucky to have some of America's hero's inour Lodge who fought in WWII, Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf War,Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places.

Catered dinner consisting of BBQ Ribs, Baked Beans, Potato Salad,Rolls, and Pie begins at 6:30 and Lodge to open at 7:30pm.