Big Brew 2007 - May 5 Official PDF
Minnesota Homebrewers Association - club website
Two different recipes were made, 40 gallons at a time. Here is the wheat mash.
Hot liquor tank on the left, mash tun in the middle, boil kettle at the right.
Just a few rice hulls, about five pounds worth.
Rick standing tall, generous host of the event. Thanks a million, Rick and Dawn.
Here you can see the patio setup on the right (brewing the wheat) and in the distance, another 40 gallon setup brewing an IPA.
Club President Gera leads us through the tradition toast to Jimmy Carter. Here's a video of the toast, complete with Rick's Bavarian clock impression. 4.4 MB (Videos use the Xvid codec).
Adding water to sparge the wheat beer.
Rick's modest cooler and keg setup in the house, as seen in BYO magazine.
Rick's normal in-house brewing setup.
It wasn't a total wash out, but we did get a little rain. 1.1 MB
Fortunately some people planned for this possibility and two tents were quickly setup. A couple "how many homebrewers does it take to set up a tent" jokes were made.
The wheat beer boils.
We brought a strong man to hold up this lawn umbrella.
Jim lent his own 40 gallon setup and brought it on a trailer. Take note of the raised kettle. It is on an electric lift, which allows you to gravity feed it into the brew kettle.
Club banner.
Club jockey box. There was a Tmave, Oktoberfest, and two IPA's on tap, shared by club members.
The lucky 8 fermenters getting 5 gallons each of the wheat.
For some reason this looks much darker than the wort actually was. It poured into the fermenter at a cool 64 degrees.
The IPA boiling away. Here is a video of the boil and a view of the backyard. 745k
Finally, Rick's hops are off to a robust start. They are probably already almost 8 feet high, geesh.