Day One for my Weblog!

OK...this is new to me, so please bear with me till I get the hang of this.
I have been home brewing beer for about 10 years now and have just started to make my own wines during the last year. I 'm an all grain brewer of beer and am now creating "Country Wines" from whole fruits. This publication is just a record of my brewing activities, and who knows, it might even turn out to be useful to someone other than myself!
Shown below is what's been going on for the last couple of weeks. I will be creating new entries as I go along and will be including my best recipies to go along with this.
Enjoy!

***June 16 2005***Brewed Howie's Celebration Bier today. This is a receipe that I have created. You can view the receipe here: http://www.beertools.com/html/recipe.php?view=4694

***June 24 2005***Racked Howie's Celebration into secondary fermenter today. Also made plans to brew a New Castle Clone Brown Ale for tomorrow.

***June 25 2005***Brewed the New Castle Brown Ale Clone today. It was a very easy receipe to make! Here it is below:

OG: 1.048-1.051
FG: 1.011-1.013

Mash 8.75 lbs of British 2-row and2oz 55L British Crystal Malt2oz British Chocolate Malt 1oz British Black malt at 150deg F for 90 minutes. then sparge w/169 deg F water to get 6.5 gal wort. Bring to a boil and add: 1oz Target @8% AA for 1 hour then add: .5 oz East Kent Goldings and 1 tsp Irish Moss for 15 minutes.Cool wort as quickly as possible and whirlpool for 45 minutes. Then slowly drain from brew pot into primary fermentor. I use a 6 gal carboy. Stabilize temp to 70 deg F then pitch yeast. (British Ale Yeast) Ferment for no more than 7 days or until it slows, then rack into 5 gal secondary fermenter. Hold for 3 weeks or until target gravity is reached.Prime with .75 cup of corn sugar dissolved in once boiling water of 1 pint and when at 70 deg F rack finished beer into keg with primer or bottle. Let it ferment at 70 deg F for at lease 4 weeks then cool to 50-55 deg F and try a pint or 2!

***July 2nd 2005***
Placed Peach wine in to Primary Carboy and added sherry yeast.
Racked off NCastle clone into secondary fermenter.
Week 2 starts for Howies Celebration in the secondary. Looking very clear. Time will tell.

***July 9 2005***
Peach Wine fermented very well during the week and as of today has slowed down considerably. I will check gravity today and if it is at or below 30, will add the next addition of sugar syrup, which should wake it up somewhat.
NCastle clone brew starts 2nd week of secondary.
Week 3 starts for Howies Celebration. This brew is now looking crystal clear. I am looking forward to tasting it, but it still has to go thru racking and priming phase and will take at least another 4-5 weeks before it ends up in a glass.

***July 10 2005***
SG of Peach Wine too low so I had to add 2 pints of sugar syrup which is a 5:2 ratio of white sugar to dark brown sugar and 2lbs to 1 pint of boiled water, which brought SG to around 1.026. I have about 1 pint of syrup left and will have to rack 2 pints out of carboy to make the rest fit. I will save the racked 2 pints in a half gallon bottle with lock on it and will use it after SG falls to 1.005 and gets racked into secondary fermenter. This should take about 2 weeks or so, and I'll have to check it weekly until target is hit. After about 2 hrs, fermentation has resumed nicely!

Well...I think i'm all caught up now and can continue with this blog thingy! Stay tuned for more, and I should have some more pics to display soon!