One and One and One is Three

Labonte-Twombly is now Labonte-Twombly-Harlow. Our buddy Keith joined the crew for our first all-grain brew Monday evening.

Going all grain meant, first of all, that we had to replace our balky mash tun that had failed during partial mashes. Seeing the wobbly false bottom as the culprit behind our clogged mashes, we opted for a stainless steel mesh filter. Billy, who is much more mechanically inclined than I am, fashioned Mash Tun 2.0.

"No leaks!"

The second great innovation for our brew team was the addition of a propane burner that would provide the oomph needed to boil 7+ gallons of liquid. Enter Keith, who already owned one for the purposes of outdoor cooking (ps: something at which he's really, really good):

The beer itself is an oatmeal stout. The moment of truth--transferring the wort from the mash tun to the brew pot--revealed the success of Billy's construction work:

 Wort, conveniently not stuck in the mash tun this time!

Spent grains

Other than the spilling of a little bit of boiling water (from the brew-pot priming) onto my big toe, the night was a complete success. We'll transfer to secondary next week, rack to bottles two weeks later, and start enjoying this batch for real sometime in October.

Cheers!