Brewing Gras I: Blind Pig Stout

My triumphant, or remaining reasonably unknown, return to the blogosphere begins today. I have overhauled the blog, removed the rant posts with terrible grammar and have come back to document my brewing recipes and stories behind the beers and their names. So Today's discussion will be on my most recent brew party, Brewing Gras and the first attempt at an all grain beer in the Blind Pig Stout.

Mardi Gras, A time that causes a lot of stress to those of us living in New Orleans, especially when you're on the Parade Route. You must get all your chores done prior to the start of the parades or you will get stuck in the crowds of maniacs screaming for the riders to "Through me something Mistah." To avoid all the chaos and rush on the Friday before Mardi Gras, I decided to have a miniature brewing party that was called Brewing Gras. This was my first day to test out the new brewing system and play with my burner, mash tun and Beer Smith Software. The Goal For the day, to create a Stout that could stand up to NOLA's Irish Channel Stout, possibly the best stout in the world. So at 9:15 am with cleaned equipment and a new lighter, the Smack pack was Smacked and The Saint Mary's Wrath brewing company opened its pilot facility.

First things first I wanted to get a complex stout while remaining within the German Purity Law. Nothing but Barley, Hops, Water and of course yeast. Utilizing 2-row as the base and targeting darker malts the recipe wound containing four different malts and a single hop strain. The malts were 2-row, chocolate, crystal 80 and roasted barley (I know it's not technically a malt.). The hop strain chosen was Kent's Golding. I used it for both bittering and flavour to really focus on simplicity for this brew.

We fired up the burner and started heating up 3.75 gallons of water to striking temperature and poured the grains in the mash tun. We struck at 180 degF to compensate for the heat loss in the transfer from Water to Grains and the Tun. At this point we had a pitcher of Pour Me Something Mistah, and were discussing the cooling plans and how it would work. After the hour sit, and 3 x 10 min batch sparges we were ready to boil. After the hop additions and the boil were completed, we utilized my newly built immersion cooler and was able to cool the pot down in ~15 minutes. Gravity was sampled, Sample was tasted and yeast was pitched. Starting OG was about 1.06, and the sweet wort tasted delicious.

So why the name "Blind Pig"? Blind Pig's, and Blind Tigers, were the poor man's speak easy during prohibition. People would pay money to see an "attraction" generally an animal, usually a pig, and would receive a drink along with the entrance fee. Once inside they were able to purchase whatever whisky or gin was available. As this is my first all grain beer, brewed in the couryard courtyard of my apartment requiring two locks, three gates and a few trips up and down the Deathcase, I found the name to be fitting. It should be good to go in about 2 weeks.