By
Justin on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 |
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Since supplies are running low in my basement, it was time to brew my 2nd batch in as many weeks. Today I brewed up a recipe available in the BeerEasy Member’s section, my Lake Superior Porter, with a couple new wrinkles to the recipe. It was a hot and humid day so I got an early start before things got unbearable.
Below are a few snap shots of the brew kettle, before the boil and during the boil. The recipe tweaks for this batch were to increase the chocolate malt to 1.0 lb and increase the Crystal malt to 0.75 lb. The brew day went very smoothly! I think the smell of a porter or stout wort might be my favorite!
Enjoy brewing up this delicious porter today, get the recipe by becoming a BeerEasy.com Member!
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Justin on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 |
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Mmmmmm….pale ale. It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a brew day, but I had to share my Simcoe Pale Ale brew day. I bought some Simcoe hops, a hop I have enjoyed from commercial beers but had not brewed with. So I crafted a super hoppy pale ale recipe, quite bitter, and extremely hoppy. I paired the Simcoe with a little bit of Amarillo.
The hop schedule looked this:
0.50 oz Galena 13.2% AA – 60 minutes
0.25 oz Simcoe 12.2% AA – 60 minutes
0.50 oz Simcoe 12.2% AA – 20 minutes
I blended 1.5 oz each of Simcoe 12.2% AA and Amarillo 7.5% AA, for a total of 3 oz or 84 grams. I added 7 grams of the hop blend every minute from the 12 minute mark to the end of the boil.
After the primary fermentation is drawing a close, I will dry hop with 0.5 oz each of Simcoe and Amarillo.
I’m thinking maybe the name of this recipe should be ‘Can You Handle It? Pale Ale’ because the hop flavor and aroma will be off the charts. A solid 61 IBUs will provide a firm bitterness in what will be a mid 5% ABV brew.
I’ve included a few pictures from today’s Simcoe Pale Ale brew day. I can’t wait for this one to finish up!
By
Justin on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 |
1 CommentWhat better to do on a cold December morning? Brew! Today I brewed an American Pale Ale, using the Cascade hops grown in my buddy’s backyard this summer. The recipe I crafted was quite simple, I wanted to showcase the hops. I’m curious to how these Cascade hops will compare to Cascade hops grown in the Pacific Northwest. They smelled quite similar, maybe a bit more spicy and little less citrusy, but overall quite similar.
So the brew day started at a chilly 23F. But no worries, I had my winter jacket and hat on. The brew day went well despite the cold temperature, although running the hose to the wort chiller was kind of a pain, the hose was quite stiff. Some of the water froze in the hose while I was cleaning, but no big deal, I’ll let it melt in the garage. Also using so many whole hops I knew siphoning the wort might be a challenge, so I tried something new, using a copper scrubber attached to the racking cane to act as a filter, I got the idea from another brewer on the web. It worked very well, no clogged racking cane. Although I’ll say this, no more brewing outside in subfreezing weather…back to the kitchen until spring or maybe a mild spell.
The recipe today was quite simple:
9.0 lbs Maris Otter
1.0 lbs Wheat Malt
1.0 lbs Crystal 40L
Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast
1.25 oz Cascades 60 mins
1.20 oz Cascades 15 mins
1.20 oz Cascades 0 mins
I will ferment this batch cool, in the low 60s. With the simple grain bill, clean yeast and cool fermentation temperatures this beer will showcase the entire 2009 harvest of our Cascade hops. I’ve attached some pictures of brew day if you’re interested. If I have time I’ll also post a few things about two of my other latest brews, a Northern English Brown, which tastes fantastic and an update on the Maibock Pale Ale which I’m enjoying as I write this.
The pictures: 1) a cold start! 2) the grains, toward the ‘top’ of the bag you can see the crushed wheat malt atop the other grains 3) the mash after doughing-in 4) the bittering addition 5) wort before the boil got going 6) wort with the bittering hops added
By
Justin on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 |
1 CommentSo the title of this post is a bit confusing, is it a maibock is it a pale ale? But trust me, it makes sense. My buddy and I brewed up a batch on Saturday, we wanted something with nice malt presence and a good amount of hop flavor and aroma. Instead of the typical American citrus hop we decided to change it up and went with the spicy German hop Tettnanger.
The recipe I came up with used a lot of German pilsner and German munich malt and a bit of caramel malt, hence the maibock part of the beer recipe, basically similar malts I would use in a maibock recipe. We bittered with Perle and made a 15 minute, 5 minute and zero minute addition of Tettnanger hops. For yeast we went with Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast, as this should give a rather clean fermentation, allowing the hops and malt to shine. If you want the recipe, give me a shout, otherwise here are a few pictures of the fermentation that is going strong in my basement.
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Justin on Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 |
No CommentsLast Sunday I was able to brew up the 1120 IPA recipe I shared a couple weeks ago. The brew day went well and my primary fermentation is winding down, 7 days later. I will be adding my dry hops to the primary fermenter in the next day or two. I’ll let those sit for about a week and then I’ll transfer the beer to the secondary. At that point I’ll let it clear further and age for another week or two and then bottle the batch. The only slight problem with the brew day was my auto-siphon got clogged at the end with hop flowers, so my final volume ended up a bit short, I only got about 5 gallons into the primary, I usually shoot for between 5.25 and 5.5 gallons.
Oh, and if you were curious I ended up going with Nottingham Ale yeast for this batch. I fermented at 57F, it took a full 24 hours to see action from the yeast at this cool temperature, but once it got going it fermented slowly and steadily through much of the week. It will be interesting to see how this beer tastes, I never have fermented an ale at this low of a temperature. I’ll post back in a couple months with a tasting. Here are a few pictures I thought you may enjoy from my brew day last Sunday.
1120 IPA Grains
Here is the grain bill mixed throughly before adding to the mash tun. The non-barley specs are flaked barley, which I think will give this IPA just a bit of a creamy mouthfeel.
Bittering Addition
The bittering addition, added at the beginning of the boil. The whole hops are Amarillo and the pellets are Cascades.
Mash after draining
Here is the mash after draining, before the first sparge, smells SO good!
Draining into brew kettle
Draining the first runnings from the mash tun into the kettle. I have the burner on low after running off to stop any further enzyme action that may be going on.
Rolling boil
Ah, a full rolling boil, you can see the whole hop flower pieces if you look closely.
Well there you have it, another enjoyable brew day! I can’t wait until this one is ready! Are you brewing anything soon?
By
Justin on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 |
No CommentsHi!
Thanks for signing up and becoming a member of the BeerEasy.com Blog.
What you’ll find here are some commercial beer reviews, an update on my latest homebrewing adventures, comments on the brewing industry and beer in general, and some resources any homebrewer may find useful.
I’ll be sure to post some of my favorite website for you all to check out.
Thanks again and Happy Brewing!
Justin
