So, I brewed a dopplebock Saturday. My wife’s brother assisted me since he’s learning the ropes. It was a good experience, albeit a little lower gravity than what I was shooting for.

14 pounds of lovely grain

 
The Brewmaster himself, stirring said 14 pounds of grain

Sparging (rinsing) the mash to get ready to boil

1 oz. of hops to start the show

Sanitizing the immersion chiller at the end of the boil

Immersion chiller and ice batch to cool the wort

I hit most of my mash temperatures spot on with the exception of my mash out, which was ~176° rather than 170° but that isn’t a big deal as you just want the high temps to kill off any further enzyme activity. My gravity was a bit low, 1.063 instead of 1.072, but again this should really only result in a bit lower alcohol and I should still have a good, dark beer to drink when it’s ready.

I have to reinforce the shelving in the fridge outside to try to keep the beer at 50° for fermenting. It’s fermenting quite high right now and I need to chill it down tonight.

Over all, a good session. Brewing is always a blast, and it was good to have my brother-in-law around to keep me company (and take pics). I’ll keep everyone up to date how the brew comes along!