I made myself useful yesterday. I put a new counter top on my outdoor fish-cleaning table and installed a new deep sink in it. It's now a combination fish cleaning/brewing table.

My California cousin showed up on a big Gold Wing motorcycle, he's coming back from Florida after completing the Four Corners Tour. A friend I used to work with showed up about that time, and we all found the Oktoberfest assortment in my garage 'fridge.

So we broke in the new improved table and brewed a batch of beer. I had a 60 lb. bucket of wheat malt syrup, so we based a recipe on that:

Dunkel Weizenbock - 10 gallons

18 lbs. wheat malt syrup (65% wheat, 35% barley)
2 lbs. crushed chocolate malt
2 1/4 oz. Hallertauer hop pellets (bittering) 4.2% alpha
1/2 tsp. Irish Moss clarifier
3/4 oz. Hallertauer hop pellets (finishing) 4.2% alpha
2 packs SAF-23 dry lager yeast

Starting gravity - I dunno, 'bout 1.060, I guess. Didn't check it - I was drinking Oktoberfest.

Today I've got two 6 1/2 gallon carboys with 5 gallons of beer in each, happily fermenting away on the concrete floor of my downstairs carpenter shop. The temp is about 65 deg., and they've got about 1/2" of white foam. The beer is blacker than Toby's ass.

It's good to get back into brewing, it's been a long time since I made a batch.