Very successful brewday.  A Hefeweizan and a Pilsner were made.  I plan to split each of them up after filtration to further make a rasberry pilsner and a blueberry wheat.  I will be running this Hefeweizan at 80 degrees under pressure – it will be interesting to see if the banana/clove aroma persists or changes with this yeast.

It was a pretty textbook day.  There was a small boilover on the pilsner – but that’s ok, I like the burnt smell.  We ‘just about’ hit the target gravities – only off by about 2 points.  The temperature dipped a little on the sparge which was probably the cause.  One thing I do know, it’s time to invest in a refractometer to make taking gravities easier.

We had some good discussion on filtered vs. unfiltered beers – which styles you can get away with not filtering, which styles you should filter.  I notice that filtration will remove some hop flavor and aroma with the recent RyePA I made – it had a beautiful grapefruit aroma before I filtered it, now it’s gone.  I will start experimenting with some ‘coarser’ filtration for some of these IPA’s to preserve the hop aroma.  What are your thoughts on clear vs unfiltered beers?

I want to thank all of the gents (and their wives) that showed up with either beer, muscles, food, wives to hang with my wife or just great conversation.  You all made it a great day. (Michael and Richard: I can’t wait to try the Altbier and Maibock that you have on-deck.)