Wort Chiller!

I'm pretty excited right now. I just got my new wort chiller in from ebay. After my last brew session I decided it was an absolute necessity. I did my first full-boil in my new 7.5 gallon pot, and it took forever to cool the beer down. Over 2 hours of swapping out cold water in the sink, stirring constantly, and using every bit of ice we had in the house, and I was only able to get it down to around 80 degrees. Hopefully it turns out well, I'm using a Belgian yeast strain that works well at higher temperatures so I'm not too worried about it. In any case, the wort chiller should do some wonders for cooling the beer down quickly.

I also just finished up with reading Designing Great Beers. I have mixed feelings on this book, since there is a lot of good information in it, but it's usefulness seems very limited. Half the book is on the basic ingredients, how they are used, and a lot of formulas to allow the homebrewer to get an accurate measurement of what they're doing. The only problem with this part is that most if not all of the formulas are easily done for you by any sort of brewing software. The second section of the book is an in-depth look at particular styles. The information in this section goes through the various beers that made it to the final round of the National Homebrewer's Competition in 1993 and 1994, and tells you what malts and hops were found in the different styles, and in what percentages they were used and how they were added. The main complaint I had about this section was the range of styles they failed to cover. Considering the format, I would have expected them to cover all of the BJCP styles that are part of the competition. However, they completely ignored every Belgian style, smoked beers, and other various styles. For the styles they covered, the information is great, but you could get similar information yourself by browsing the recipe database over at homebrewtalk.

I just started reading Radical Brewing as well. So far so good, this book is written in an entertaining and informative fashion, and I'm hoping it will give me some inspiration for some crazy beers. It's been a few months since I've come up with any particularly interesting new recipes. Dan did just come up with a Honeydew Kolsch, which should be pretty delicious. Now I just need to remember to write something up the next time I drink something tasty.

- Adam