Cameron and Cassie gave me this cool kit for my birthday last month. I brewed it yesterday and it was a lot of fun! It came with the needed yeast, so I thought I’d try a yeast starter. I don’t have a stir plate yet, so I just swished it a bit whenever I walked by the beer fridge for about a day. It was a real kick doing a complete all-grain brew of 1 gallon.
The mash was a little challenging because I didn’t want to use my regular brewing equipment, as I felt it would have been too cumbersome for this small batch. Using some of their suggestions and a few ideas of my own, I came up with this setup:
Mini-sparge in progress
I did decide to enhance the recipe a little by adding the zest from 2 limes and a handful of fresh mint from the garden to the last 30 minutes of the boil.
Boil in progress
The yeast starter proved fine, and there was an active fermentation this morning. Maybe a little too active for the fermentation lock. BBS suggested a blow-off tube for the first few days, which I will heed the next time I brew a 1-gallon batch.
All in all, a very enjoyable session. Thanks, Cass & Cam!
