The B.V.M. Stout.... on Candlemas!

It seems to be something Divine, that without my planning, the Blessed Virign Mary Milkstout will be bottled on Candlemas, a feast of Mary and of Christ (Purification of and Presentation of respectively). Today I bottle, and hopefully I'll get a good number of bottles. Hopefully the beer is as wonderful as I anticipate it will be also. Here's the label I've devised (to be printed on blue paper naturally). I may have to change the notes about how it tastes, but that day comes in two weeks, or perhaps a month.

In other beer news, I brewed my first all-grain beer last Tuesday. No pictures, sorry. I need to find a friend who'll wake up early and spend all day out in the freezing cold with me drinking beers and boiling wort. Once I do, I'll get him/her to take pictures so we can all see how I do all-grain brewing. Tuesday's batch will be called "Fell in the Snow" IPA because I dumped the box of milled grains in the snow on the way to the mash tun! :\ I figured it's all just water, and I'll be boiling it for an hour to kill any germs anyhow. So I just loaded up my mash tun with scoops from the thick and still-falling snow, and the only negative result was a lower-than-optimal rest temperature (145 instead of 150-152). We shall see how it turns out. Here was my recipe:

13lbs American Pale Ale Malt
1lb American Crystal 40L
-mash for 60 minutes with 170° water (152° rest temp)
-batch sparge with 180° water

American Pale ale Yeast (Whitelabs)

60 minute boil.
1oz Galena 60 mins
1oz Galena 15 mins
1oz Cascade (Aroma)
-IBUs: 61

We'll see how it goes. My next beer I think will be an all-grain red ale. Hopefully I'll brew it next week, maybe Wednesday.