So here we are, five days into the new year and I am two beers into Brewing Classic Styles a.k.a. The Danil and Jamil Project a.k.a. The Danil, Jamil, and John Palmil Project a.k.a. I’m brewing every recipe in the aforementioned book this year.
Feast your eyes on the “Brewing Classic Styles Recipometer” on the right side of this post. I will be using this recipometer for the entire year to track my progress through the book. The book’s cover claims to have “80 Award Winning Recipes” inside but if you leaf through, you will discover that there are more than 90 recipes in the book. Maybe only 80 of them are “award winning.” Actually, there are a few variations that were interesting enough, in my mind, to make me want to brew them. My face (happy for now) will rise as I complete recipes
My goal this year is to brew 94 one-gallon batches, all from recipes found in this book. That is almost 2 recipes a week. Two a week is fine and I think anyone could do it except that when you factor in vacations (Patagonia here we come!) and holidays, the 45 days of the year that I will be sleeping, and all those days doing whatever else it is people do when they are not brewing, I think it will be a tough run. That said, if I do brew two a week I will have the whole month of December to do the drinking.
You probably can’t tell by looking at the recipometer but I have already brewed two of 94. My first one was the Lambic, Lambicus Piatzii, and my second was the Oud Bruin, Flanders Brown Ale. Brewing one-gallon batches takes some getting used to. I really should have done a test batch. Different equipment, different measurements, much less yeast. Instead of doing a test batch I had not enough wort post-boil for the lambic and too much post-boil wort for the Flanders brown. In fact, I had to boil the Flanders brown for almost double what the recipe called for to get the volume where it is supposed to be. Good thing there is only the one early hop addition.