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Friday, June 24, 2011

Bitter American 3.0

This is my third time brewing this.  I really like this brew.  I altered it some more after looking at 21A's webiste.  This is a strait up attempt at cloning their Bitter American Session Bitter Ale.  It's quite tasty.  I altered it quite a bit this time, so hopefully it's closer!  I wanted more of a malt taste this time so I upped the Golden Promise up quite a bit.  Also, Brew Brothers' new grain mill is working way better.  My efficiencies today were up to close to 80%!  I came in a couple points over expected gravity as opposed to being under like I have been for the last who knows how many batches.  So without further ado, here's the recipe:

5.5 Gallon Recipe

Grains:
6lb Simpsons Golden Promise
3lb GW 2-Row
2lb Munich Light
.5lb Crystal 40L

Hops:
1oz Warrior Pellet for 60m
.25oz Warrior Pellet for 30m
.5oz Cascade Leaf for 30m
1oz Cascade Leaf for 5m

1.5oz Centennial leaf  Dry Hop for 7 days in secondary
2oz Simcoe leaf Dry Hop for 7 days in secondary

Extras:
1tsp Irish Moss at 15m

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 Slurry

Notes: Brewing was super easy again.  I was able to get some reading done while waiting for each stage to finish.  Gravity was supposed to come in at 1.053, it was actually 1.056, so my efficiency is way better.  Must be that new grain mill.  This should get down to around 1.012 or so for a final ABV of around 5%.  This will be an awesome summer evening ale to sit on the patio and thank God for how good he is.
Update 7/2/11: Racked to secondary and added 2oz of Simcoe and about .5oz of Centennial.  It was supposed to have 1.5oz of Centennial, but I only had .5oz left.  I'm sure it will still taste awesome!  Final Gravity was 1.011 giving the final ABV of 5.8%.  That's a lot higher than I wanted, so next time I'll back off the Golden Promise by about a pound.  Oh well, so goes the brewing life.
Update 7/8/11: Kegged plus a 22.
Tasting Update: I really like this.  It has a bigger malt taste thanks to the increase in the Golden Promise.  My wife isn't as big of a fan, so more for me I guess.  Next time I'll scale back the Golden Promise to 4.5 or 5 pounds to lower the malt for my wife as well as to lower the ABV.  Overall, another successful brew!
Second Tasting Update:  This has aged very nicely.  This is a fantastic ale.  Highly recommend brewing this!

Friday, June 17, 2011

Trixie 2.0

So the Happy Birthday Aunt Trixie was a huge success, especially to my wife.  She was really psyched on it and started to give me some flack about giving it away, so I told her I would brew up some more.  So here it is.  I modified it a bit from the original, but it's pretty similar.

Recipe:
5.5 Gallons

Grain:
10 lb GW 2-Row

Hops:
.6oz Nugget Pellets from Old Dirty Randy for 60m

Yeast:
1056 Slurry that keeps on giving

Extras:
1tsp Irish Moss at 15m
I'll add 24oz of boiled and strained Raspberries when I rack to secondary.

Notes:
The new grain mill at Brew Brothers must be doing it's thing because I was back to 75% efficiency today.  That means that instead of 4.2ish % ABV, I got 5%.  Still a decent session summery ale, so I'm happy with that.  OG was 1.052.  FG should be about 1.013 for the 5% mark.  Everything went super smooth as well.  Total brew time was about 4 hours.  Sunny day as well.  Perfect Brew Day!
Update 6/25/11: Racked to secondary and added the raspberries.  I boiled 24oz for about 1/2 hour and then strained out the chunks and added the raspberry juice/extract to the brew.  Forgot to get a final gravity.  I'm assuming it was around 1.012ish.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Pliny the Elder Clone

So it's time to jump on the homebrewing bandwagon and brew up some Pliny.  This is definitely a great tasting IPA with a ton of hop flavor.  I'll hopefully pit it against the Tara-dact-Ale (supposing I have some left by the time the Pliny is done) and see which is better.  I'll be brewing this tomorrow which is supposed to be a great day and the start of a great weekend which means I'll be able to dry the grain and get it into some chickens who will turn it into eggs.

Pliny was the guy who first identified hops and gave them a scientific name back in the first century.  What a great guy!

Recipe:
5.5 gallons

Grain:
15lb GW 2-Row
.7lb Carapils
.7lb Crystal 40L (supposed to be 50L, but oh well)

Hops:
3oz CTZ for 90m
.75oz CTZ for 45m
1oz Simcoe for 30m
1oz Centennial for 0m
2.5oz Simcoe for 0m

1oz CTZ for 10 days in secondary
1oz Centennial for 10 days in secondary
1oz Simcoe for 10 days in secondary
.25 CTZ for 5 days in secondary
.25 Centennial for 5 days in secondary
.25 Simcoe for 5 days in secondary

Extras:
1lb Dextrose for 90m in boil
1tsp Irish Moss for 15m in boil

Yeast:
1056 Slurry

Anticipated Results:
OG: 1.084
FG: 1.021
ABV: 8.3%
IBU: 127

I'll post updates as stuff happens as usual.
Brewing Update: Gravity came in way too low.  Hopefully the new grain mill at BrewBros will help fix this problem.  Rumor is that the old one wasn't cracking the grain as well as the new one does.  OG is 1.062.  So this will come in way below the targets...oh well.  Everything else was nice and smooth.  Total time was about 4 1/2 hours, not too bad for a 90 minute boil.
Update 6/7/11: Gravity at 1.022.  I'll give it to the weekend to try to drop a little more.  I'd like it to end up in the 1.014-1.017 range.
Update 6/12/11: Racked to secondary and added first round of dry hops.  One ounce each of CTZ, Centennial, and Simcoe.  Gravity was at 1.011.  Super bitter flavor, this should be good!
Update 6/19/11: Added another .25oz of CTZ and Centennial.  I was also supposed to add .25 of Simcoe, but I added .5oz of Simcoe.  After all, what's better than .25oz of Simcoe?  .5 oz of Simcoe.
Update 6/22/11: Racked to keg.

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