Let it begin...

How is life treating you? Better yet, how are you treating life? - Eddie Vedder

I Just started an Octoberfest on Thursday, it smells great...I got it at a homebrew store called Siciliano's Market in Grand Rapids towards Grandville...the place is great, you can mill your own mix of grains from the bulk buckets they have out, you can measure your own dry and liquid malts, and they have a great selection of both hops and yeasts, not to mention its a full liquor store with tons of different beers, pretty much heaven...but this time i just wanted a quick recipe so i picked up a prepacked Octoberfest...can't find the recipe right now, but it smells great, first time i put the batch in a glass carboy for the primary, its really neat to see all the activity, bubbles, krausen ring forming etc...

Friday I picked up from the store a ginger porter recipe and I made it on Sunday afternoon...

-2 gal H20 brought to a boil with a sock full of 1lb. 120 crystal malt and 1/3 lb. of chocolate malt
-Removed right before boil then added at boil 3.3 lbs. Dark LME, 1.5 lbs. Dark DME
-brought to a boil again added 1 oz. of cascade pellets and approx. 4 oz of grated ginger (reminded me of sushi)
-50 min later added 1 oz of cascade hops
-After 60 min boil total ice bathed
-Poured wort into 3.5 gal of Cold Water
-Poured dry 56 yeast that had been sititng in warm water for 45 minutes onto surface
-10 minutes later stirred in yeast and toped bucket

It started to bubble last night after about 20 hours from brewing

This brew hopefully won't be overpoweringly gingery, with a light to medium based porter to back it.

Meanwhile my german wheat is only getting better with age, I didn't really like it at first maybe because of the distict banana clover taste that i just wasn't ready for, but either way i love it now and really am enjoying it.

Fridge: German Wheat HB
MGD cans
New Holland Amber - its ok, a little bitter with a strange aftertaste
Founders Double IPA - holy hops, i love IPA's but this is a little too much

I wanna do this...
http://www.siebelinstitute.com/course_desc/intl_diploma.html

How's everyone else doing out there?