First Brew Day

We didn't waste any time after we were approved as a brewery yesterday - we brewed our first batch today.

It has been just over 6 months since we signed our lease and started the long process of getting all of our permits and licenses. 

Being our first brew on our new system, we had to learn all the little intricacies the hard way. But that being said, things went pretty smooth overall. It took us about 5.5 hours to brew the beer, and another 3.5 hours to clean up. A brewer is definitely first and foremost a janitor.

So what did we brew for our first batch?  A Hefeweizen. Not the most conventional style, but we chose it because it has the least amount of ingredients, in case the worst happens and the first batch doesn't work out. We scaled up the grain bill from our homebrew recipe, 18.6 times from 5 gallons to 93 gallons.

It was a great day and we're pooped.  Time for a couple of celebratory beers!

 

Mashing in.

 

Working the sparge arm.

 

Adding the glorious hops.

 

Go little yeast go!

 

And the cleanup begins.