Daniel Belgian Dark

This beer was inspired by the man whom I bought my stir plate from on etsy. I love the stir plate btw, and this beer, while not as strong as Daniel's, still could use the yeast starter. I also found this Omega yeast (Belgian Ale R) was very slow to start up. I also got to try making invert sugar for this brew.
The recipe:

Edit yellow cells in System Setup. Edit green cells for recipe creation. DO NOT edit red or blue cells.					System Setup
Volume into Fermenter	3.5	gal	13248 grams		Brewhouse efficiency		0.6	%
Boil Time	70	min			Boil off rate		0.5	gal/hour
Select Style	American Pale Ale		<-- Style Guideline		Loss in kettle		0.2	gal
Expected OG / FG	1.072	1.014	1.045 - 1.060	1.010 - 1.015	Yeast attenuation		0.8
Expected ABV	7.5	%	4.5 - 6.2	%	Grain Absorption		0.11	gal/lb
Expected Bitterness	23.1	IBUs	30 - 45	IBUs	Loss in MashTun		0.1	gal
Grain Build
Grain Name	Amount (lbs)	Eff (optional)		Hop Schedule
Pale Ale	7		3175g (73%)	Hop Name	Alpha Acid %	Amount (oz)	Time (min)	IBUs
Briess C20	1.4	0.7	635g (15%)	Pride f Ringwood	10	0.35	70	17.0
Special B	0.35	0.75	159g (4%)	Pride f Ringwood	10	0.3	10	6.1
Malt Extract
DME	0.5	20.5	226.8 g (5%)
LME		0
Adjuncts / Sugars	Amount (lbs)	Gravity Units
Darkened Sugar	0.5	38	226.8 g (7%)
D-180	1	38	453.6 g (14%)
Total Gravity Points		266.353
Brew Day Instructions
Desired Mash Temp	154	F	67.8 C
Mash Water Volume	3.5	gal (1.60qt/lb)	13248 grams
Grain Temperature	70	F	21.1 C
Strike Temperature	163.56	F	73.1 C
Grain Absorption Loss	0.9625	gal	3643 grams
Sparge water needed	1.745833333	gal	6608 grams
Pre-boil gravity=1.064	Pre-boil volume=4.3gal

Making invert sugar was pretty easy (after burning the first batch), just go slow and add water to reduce the temp until the color got to where I wanted it. I did this several days in advance of the brew.

I started the yeast starter in a 1L flask, but it took two days before it really seemed like it was working. This delayed the start date, so a second round of yeast propagation was done after a few days in a 1gal fermenter just to get a massive amount of healthy soldiers. 

Brew day was straightforward as I recall. I also used for the first time an O2 stone that I got for beefy brews like this one. Gave the thing some O2 on day2 along with adding the D-180 sugar.

In the secondary I used a heating pad to warm the carboy to 77F just to try to dry out the beer a little. Other than that, nothing really remarkable. As usual no FG measurement, but it's not cloying to me. The esters are good, the sugars added a nice raisin-ish character I was hoping for. All in all I would definitely repeat the beer. Also submitted two bottles to the Enchanted brewing challenge, so we'll have objective reviews soon hopefully. 

Blacker Danker Ale (Brewed 170113)

I brewed what I hope will be the third and best version of this Cascadian Dark Ale which was sorta meant to be a clone of Santa-Fe's Black IPA but has since grown to be blacker, danker and better in the last two rounds. The goal time was to basically use the same recipe as the last version (IntensityPowerArea) to make 5 gallons to fill the keg since we cannot get enough of it. 

The recipe:

I wanna put the beer I designed for Jon in my 5G keg!
Note: Edit yellow cells for system profile. Edit green cells for recipe creation. DO NOT edit red or blue cells					System Setup
Volume into Fermenter	5.5	gal	20819 grams		Brewhouse efficiency		0.8
Boil Time	60	min			Boil off rate		0.5	gal/hour
Select Style	American Pale Ale		Style Guideline		Loss in kettle		0.2	gal
Expected OG / FG	1.061	1.012	1.045 - 1.060	1.010 - 1.015	Yeast attenuation		0.8
Expected ABV	6.4	%	4.5 - 6.2	%	Grain Absorption		0.11	gal/lb
Expected Bitterness	89.7	IBUs	30 - 45	IBUs	Loss in MashTun		0.11
Grain Build				Hop Schedule
Grain Name	Amount (lbs)	Grain Eff (optional)		Hop Name	Alpha Acid %	Amount (oz)	Time (min)	IBUs
Vienna	2		907.2 grams	Simcoe	12	1	60	39.1
2 Row	5.7		2585.5 grams	Chinook	12	0.5	40	17.0
Chocolate malt	0.4	0.01	181.4 grams
CaraMunich III	1	0.6	453.6 grams	Mosaic	12	1	15	21.0
Carafa III	0.4	0.01	181.4 grams	Chinook	12	0.5	10	8.5
Midnight Wheat	0.4	0.01		Amarillo	8	0.5	5	4.1
Rye	1		453.6 grams
Malt Extract				Chinook	12	1	dry-hop
DME	1.733	71.053	786.1 grams	Amarillo	8	0.5	dryhop
LME		0
Total Gravity Points		349.7026
Brew Day Instructions
Desired Mash Temp	154	F	67.8 C
Mash Water Volume	4	gal (1.47 qt/lb)	15141 grams
Grain Temperature	70	F	21.1 C
Strike Temperature	164.42	F	73.6 C
Grain Absorption Loss	1.199	gal	4538 grams
Sparge water needed	3.399	gal	12866 grams
Pre-boil gravity=1.056
Mixing RO Water with City Water (Carlsbad, NM)						Mash Water Calculation
						2.60	City Water (gal)
Desired Total Alkalinity		200	Edit this value only!!!			1.40	RO Water (gal)
City Water Fraction		0.650	The resulting fraction of water to use to achieve the Total Alkalinity
RO water fraction		0.350
		Csbad (ppm)	RO (ppm)	Mix (ppm)
Sodium	Na	16	8	13
Potassium	K	2	0	1
Calcium	CaCO3	77	1	50
Magnesium	Mg	35	0	23
Total Hardness	CaCO3	338	0	220
Nitrate	NO3-N	0.8	0	1
Sulfate	SO4-S	26	0	17
Chloride	Cl	19	0	12
Carbonate	CO3	0	0	0
Bicarbonate	HCO3	299	16	200
Total Alkalinity	CaCO3	247	13	165

As expected, this is the blackest most metal mash ever

First runnings are black alrigh

That's a sick first runnings, so metal

Boiling in two pots, the smaller is the first runnings, and the larger is lower gravity sparge which got the majority of the hops during the boil.