Hops: 3.2% Saaz, 2 oz

Yeast: White Labs WLP302 American Hefeweizen liquid yeast tube

Equipment:
50 quart mash tun, of my own fabrication (with the aid of Zymeco Kewler Kitz, and a lot of screwing up along the way)
21 quart water bath canner/lobster pot, which transfers heat to the fluid remarkably well
12 quart aluminium stock pot, which leaks at the top and doesn’t do nearly as well (so it’s more like a 10 quart pot, functionally)
1L Erlenmeyer flask
5 gallon carboy
6.5 gallon food-grade plastic brew bucket, with grommeted hole in the lid
3 airlocks and 2 bungs

Protocol:
Cleaned and sanitized carboy, bucket and flask
Cleaned all other equipment
In large stock pot, brought 20 quarts H20 to 45ºC. Meanwhile in small stock pot, brought ~8 quarts H20 to 100ºC.
Mixed all grains together in mash tun
Stuck mash with 20 quarts @45ºC (should have been 10 quarts!)
After 20 minutes, added 8 quarts @100ºC (this was too much heat–it got the mash temperature up to 75ºC, at which point desirable enzymes begin to denature.) Beteween the screwups in the above two steps I ended up with a much weaker brew than I wanted.
Left lid open and added ice cubes to reduce heat to 65ºC
Closed lid and mashed at 65º for 1 hour
Noted only insignificant dripping from imperfect pipe fittings in mash tun bulkhead
Lautered first runnings at 1.044 OG (1.0636 adjusted for temperature)
Added 3 gallons sparge water at 70ºC, allowed to dissolve sugars for 15 minutes
Lautered second runnings into separate vessel at 1.025 Og (1.047 adjusted for temp)

Boiled first runnings with 1.0 ounce of hops for 60 minutes, adding 0.5 ounces at 30 minutees
Boiled second runnings with 0.5 ounce of hops, 60 minutes
Diverted 800 mL of boiled second runnings to Erlenmeyer flask, and pitched 1/10 of yeast tube, affixed airlock

At 60 minutes, chilled both boils to ~26ºC. Due to ambient temperature, was unable to achieve further immersion chilling (maybe next time will run cold water line through an ice bath!)
Decanted first runnings (with some second runnings added, for an OG of 1.033) to bucket. Pitched remaining yeast affixed lid and airlock.
Decanted second runnings to carboy, affixed airlock

Day 2:
Bucket not fermenting well. Added 1 Tbsp di-ammonium phosphate (yeast nutrient) to bucket, re-aerated
Pitched starter in flask to carboy, added 2 tsp of DAP, re-affixed airlock
Picked 6 pounds blueberries
Both carboys fermenting vigorously by evening.

Ingredients:

Cranberry Kombucha!

1 bottle store-bought Kombucha, any flavor (buy it at whole foods or your local health-food store).
1 cup sugar (cane, beet, corn, maple, whatever)
4 tea bags (your choice) or equivalent amount of loose tea
1 gallon-size crock pot (or scale up)
5 fluid ounces cranberry cocktail concentrate (with real sugar, not HFCS.  You could use straight up cranberry juice to similar effect)

Protocol:

Brew tea.  Very strong.  In crock pot.
Add sugar
Cool to room temperature
Add half bottle of store-bought Kombucha.  Drink the rest.  If you drink too much, add whatever’s left.
Cover your crock pot with a towel (NOT the lid–this is supposed to be an aerobic fermentation!), and set aside in a place where it won’t be disturbed for a few weeks.

Let sit completely undisturbed for at least a month.  I mean don’t even move it across your counter.  If you do move it, it’s not the end of the world, but it will screw up the structural integrity of your Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY).

After your month is up there should be a mushroomy-looking film on top of your Kombucha.  This is the SCOBY.  It is good.  Take a teaspoon (well-washed) and taste the product.  If it is sour and tasty, you did it right.  If it smells repulsive or otherwise “off,” do not taste it–either throw it out or at least get a second opinion from somebody who knows Kombucha.  If there are bits of mold growing on top of the SCOBY your Kombucha may be fine, but you will not be able to use that SCOBY again.  If everything is shiny on top of the SCOBY, then gently lift it onto a plate, bottle your Kombucha (mason jars work fine), leaving a cup or two in the crockpot. This is where I add the cranberry.  I used a cranberry cocktail concentrate with added cane sugar to cut the tartness and make it fizzy.   Make a new batch of tea and start again, putting your new SCOBY on top.  Just be sure to cool the tea before you mix it with the old batch or put the SCOBY on, lest you kill your culture.

For a 5-gallon batch:

2 cans light Light Malt Extract
1/2 lb German Crystal dark malt
1/4 lb Chocolate Malt
1 lb flaked barley (looks like oatmeal)
1 can pumpkin
2 oz hallertau hops
Approx 2 tsp pumpkin pie spices
1 tsp Irish Moss
1 phial White Labs California Ale Yeast
5 gallons Poland Spring water (I use Poland Spring because it is neither chlorinated nor fluoridated, the publish extensive water quality data online, and the data show the water to be of very good quality)
Fermax yeast nutrient (I think it was 1 tsp/gallon)

In a three-gallon pot:

*Realize that grains should have been crushed in the homebrew shop; bash them a bit with one of the LME cans.

* Put grains in a muslin grain bag, tie shut, and steep in 2 gallons water between 150-170 degrees Fahrenheit, 30 minutes

* Remove bag, drain water out, and discard grains

* Add Liquid Malt Extract and hops to grain-tea, boil for 30 minutes

* Add pumpkin, boil another 15 minutes

* Add Irish Moss and spices, boil for another 15 minutes

* Watch in awe as the wort that boiled over combusts, foams, and mushrooms on the burner

* Remove from heat, add remaining three gallons of water to a food-grade plastic brewer’s bucket, then add hot wort. Chill with copper immersion chiller to 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

* Decant chilled wort into glass, 6.5 gal carboy, straining out hop leaves. Pitch yeast and add fermax.

* Affix airlock, move down to the shelf where it will ferment.

* OG not measured due to broken hydrometer; recipe indicates 1.042.

* Get up next morning, check carboy. No activity is apparent. Go to Local Homebrew Store and buy more yeast. They advise that I give it a vigorous shake, which may be all it needs. They say if I see some foam after I do that, it means the yeast is working and I do not need to repitch. I thank them for the advise, shake the thing up, and repitch anyway. I’m fairly certain I would see *some* foam even if I were just shaking water. I’d rather waste the $3.00 I spent on extra yeast than the $55 that I spent on ingredients!

Update Monday and Tuesday saw high Kräusen, vigorous roiling activity in the carboy, and a six-degree spike above ambient temperature (73F in the room, 79F in the carboy).  Wednesday, the Kräusen activity is lessened, and the solid matter is mostly settled at the bottom of the tank.  Will take hydrometer reading and possibly rack this weekend.

Update: Racked the beer on Wednesday night, September 24, and kegged it in 5L mini kegs on Thursday, September 25.  Served some up at the training graduation party on Friday 26.  It was still mostly flat, but scrumptious none the less–I even got a “better than most homebrew” review from a colleague!