I kicked off the 2010 brewing season -- and the first brew day since I gussied up my homebrew operation by giving it a name -- with a re-brew of a beer I made in the spring: Houblonmonstre Tripel IPA. Two friends requested a keg of this for their birthday party in October and I was happy to oblige. Of the five beers I brewed last winter/spring, this one was my favorite.

This was the first chance I had to use the new burner and also my first time brewing outside (as the new burner would kill us all if we brewed inside). Both went well. The burner was initially very weak; but some wiggling of parts solved that problem and the wort came up to a boil pleasingly quickly. For such a sturdy burner, I think the assembly of the air vent is oddly kludgy. We'll see if it behaves from here on out. And brewing outside is nice, for now. We'll see how it goes in January!

I invited a bunch of friends over to this brew day, as I do every time I brew. But this time they actually showed up, which was great. Except that the socializing distracted me a few times from what I should have been doing. Oh, hey, that immersion chiller was supposed to go in ten minutes ago, etc. Nothing too damaging to the beer, hopefully.

This recipe should make a wort with a gravity around 1.082. But both times I've made it I've ended up at 1.077. Not sure what's going on there. I made sure to get all the extract out of the jugs and all of the sugar out of the bags. And the carboy is filled up to five gallons exactly. It's not a complex recipe, so the difference in gravity is perplexing. But if the last batch, which was quite tasty, was at 1.077 then I'm not going to worry too much about this batch being at the same gravity.

Unlike last time, I'm trying to keep a close eye on this batch's fermentation temperature. It's been hot here, so my basement's temperature is hovering around 70-75. If I just let the beer go, the fermentation temp would jump up to the low 80s, at least. And that's no good. Before pitching the yeast, I got the wort temperature down to 63 by sticking the carboy in a freezer. And for the first two days of fermentation, I kept the beer in the low 70s by wrapping the carboy in cold, wet cloths. That should keep it from being a hot, solventy mess. Now that the beer is past the high point of fermentation, I'm letting the temperature rise naturally. I'd like for it to finish in the mid-to-high 70s.

Fermentation should wrap up late next week. Then I'll move this batch to a keg for conditioning and carbonation. This is the first time I've used a keg. It's nice to not have to worry about washing 4 dozen bottles.