Test Porter and Starter Session

Last night was a busy night for me. I brewed two 1 gallon batches. One was just a gallon of un-hopped wort for starters, and the other was a 1 gallon test batch of a Porter. And the most exciting part about last night was it was the first time I got to use my new wort chiller that I bought from Beer-Wine.com.

For the 1 gallon starter batch, I was able to squeeze 9, 500 ml bags of starter wort to save for later use. I separated them out in Ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. My goal here is to start to save and re-use my yeast for future batches. Not only will it help with the cost aspect (I hope to be brewing a lot more now) but a friend of mine tuned me into the tidbit that if I plan on making a lager, that the best results come from 3rd or 4Th generation yeast. That being said, I'm starting. I'm going to order some test tubes so I can store them in the fridge and label them easily.

The 1 gallon test batch was a little different. I completely missed my target gravity (reached 1.046, target was 1.057). After the boil, I had to add some chilled water to try and top off to a full gallon but was unable to reach a gallon before the gravity was already at 1.046 (I originally measured it at 1.096 after I chilled it). I have no clue how that happened. I followed my recipe from tasty brew to the T, but was still not able to make it happen. Unfortunately because I was trying to multi-task my two brews while watching the Red Sox/Rangers slug fest, I took horrible notes and now can't go back and review. It's currently in the jug fermenter (Carlo Rossi jug....thanks for the idea Ted) so we'll see how it comes out in the end. It looks and smells fantastic, but I was a little dissappointed when I took the gravity reading. I guess this will be a good learning experience....if I can ever figure out what the lesson is?!?!?!?

1g Starter:

1 lb extra light DME

Boiled in 1 gallon of water for 10 min, chilled and bagged.

1g Test Porter:

Fermentables
1 lb Muntons Dark DME
4.2 oz Chocolate Malt
2.1 oz Crystal 120
4.4 oz British brown

Hops
.5 oz UK Challanger (7.5%AA - 30 min)
.5 oz Cascade(6.6%AA - 15 min)

Wyeast #1275 - Thames Valley Propagator

Cheers,
Jason