Today was a day of first for me but before I get into that, a little about weakness.

I know that the next logical step in my home brewing evolution is to start using glass “carboys” for fermentation and secondary fermentation. Plastic wears out by simply deteriorating or becoming too impregnated with colors, smells and flavors from brews gone by.

Knowing this, I had figured that I would make the plunge into carboys eventually. I just went ahead and got one last time I went to the brewery supply store.

So below are some pictures of me “racking”, or transferring the beer out of the primary fermenter, into the carboy. Awesome. And it’s fine if you can’t appreciate me geeking out over my carboy. My precious.

So the carboy wasn’t a first today, it was Thursday, but I’m lumping it in with my day of firsts to pad the stats. Here’s my next first - I had my first boil over today.

Luckily I had the foil down on the stove, so the boil over only ruined some foil that was going to get tossed anyway. Still, that was a first. Granted, I was trying to keep the two year old from killing himself at the time, so I have a good excuse but still, a first.

The boil over was on a new recipe, another first. I’ve only ever made the “Continental Pilsner” beer kits, but in recognition of the upcoming holidays I decided something a little more seasonal was in order. I got the “Bold Holiday Ale” kit. Bold, for those who aren’t aware, is code for lots of alcohol. I just learned this myself so don’t feel bad if you didn’t know.

So my pilsner-style beer comes out at about 4.5% alcohol by volume (ABV). The Bold Holiday Ale comes out at 8-9% ABV. That’ll keep you warm, which is the point I guess.

I order to achieve this remarkable figure the quantity of ingredients that’s used in the recipe is effectively doubled. Where as in other ingredients there’s one can of malt extract syrup, one bag of grains for steeping and two pounds of spray-dried malt, the BoHoAl doubles all those figures. I reduced the water volume of my boil back to two gallons from three last time (to improve cooling) and the consistency at the end of the boil was seriously thick, like lukewarm honey. When I moved the stirring stick through the mixture it left a trail.

The Initial/Starting gravity of the mixture was nearly 70. It was supposed to actually be above 70, but I had the boil over so I lost some sugars and stuff. Still, I think this beer is going to be pretty stout - it’ll put hair on my chest finally.

So the holiday ale is just in the fermenter and will probably thrash pretty good as a result of all that sugar. I think that the pilsner-style beer in the carboy will be finishing up secondary fermentation and be ready for bottling just in time to handle the secondary fermentation of the holiday ale. I’ll try and get more/better pictures at that point if I’m not too rushed.