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Friday, February 25, 2011

Why Are You Yelling At Me? -American Bitter

So this is going to be my first all grain batch, which I plan on brewing this afternoon (supposing everything works out today).  It's a clone recipe of Bitter American, which is an American style Bitter made by 21st Amendment Brewing.  Here's a review I did of the beer.  It's a session beer, so it will have a lower starting gravity and lower ABV.  I hope that this turns out well!  Here's the recipe and details:

Grain Bill:
3.75 lbs 2-Row
3.75 lbs Golden Promise
.5 lbs Crystal 40L

Hop Schedule:
1oz Centennial for 60min
.75oz Centennial for 10min
.75oz Simcoe for 10min
.75oz Centennial for 5min
.75oz Simcoe for 5min

2oz Centennial for 7 day dry-hop
2oz Simcoe for 7 day dry-hop

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 American Ale slurry from previous batches

Anticipated OG: 1.041
Anticipated FG: 1.010
Anticipated ABV: 4.1%

Hope to brew this today!

Update from the brewing:
Gravity came out at 1.032.  I ended up with 1/2 gallon more wort than I should have, so that's probably why the gravity is lower.  Oh well, it's a session beer which should have lower alcohol, so that should help.  Things went so-so.  See my other post from today to check that out.  I have about 5.5 gallons fermenting right now with the dry hop happening as I type.  Gotta love the hops!
Update 2/25/11:  So since the gravity was so low I decided to try to fix that after talking to Old Dirty Randy at Poorhouse Brewing.  He recommended using some Dry Malt Extract and boiling it into a couple pints of fermenting beer.  So I did the math and added 1.25lbs of DME to a couple pints.  Pre-boil gravity for the batch was 1.012.  After the boil it was 1.022.  So it worked.  After a huge mess with boil overs and malt catching on fire on the stove and lots of smoke, it worked.  Hopefully it saves the batch.
Update 2/28/11: Gravity is at 1.011 with a good malty flavor.  Looks like the DME saved this batch.  I'll rack it to secondary after I bottle the Opening Day Amber Ale in the next day or two.
Update 3/1/11: Gravity at 1.010.
Update 3/3/11: Gravity at 1.010.  Racked to secondary and cold crashed in the garage.  I hope to bottle this in a couple days.
Update 3/6/11: Bottled it up.  Got 48 12's and 1 22oz.  Pretty good!
Update 3/22/11:  This stuff is really good.  It's not quite as malty as the Bitter American, but it's got a great hop flavor and is plenty smooth.  I may up the Golden Promise next time and see if that increases the malt flavor.

Tasting:  Outstanding.  Great hop flavor...really smooth.  I'm really enjoying this one and will be making it again soon!  I'll add a little more golden promise next time to try for a little more malty flavor, but this is great as it was.

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