The ingredients (modified) are as follows:
3.5 lbs Light Extract (hopped)
4 lbs Extra Light Extract
1 lb Crystal Malt 60
1 lb Munich Malt (Special)
24 oz Clover Honey
2 oz Kent Goldings Hops (5%AA)
1 oz Nugget Hops (13.5%AA)
1 tsp Irish Moss
5 tsp Gelatin Finnings
5 gal H2O
White Labs English Ale Yeast
Place Crystal Malt and Munich Malt in seperate mesh socks and submerge in 2 gallons of cold water. Turn the heat on and bring to a boil. Remove grain socks and squeeze as much water out of them as possible before discarding them in a trash can full of empty beer bottles.
Be sure to take the trash out as soon after the process of brewing as possible because the mice you've been tolerating for the winter in your kitchen will likely find them as much a treat as you do.
Add the remaining malt extracts, honey, and 1 oz of Kent Goldings Hops and allow to boil. . .not boil over. When the wort threatens to boil over just remove the pot from the burner until the bubbles settle back down. After doing this about 8-9 times the wort magically does not boil over. There is some science behind it but I forget exactly what happens.
While the wort is boiling, go ahead and sanitize your bucket. It's likely that, even though you washed it out after your last batch, it's covered in bacteria. If nothing else, if your last batch was especially strong (7.9%) or particularly flavorful (mud) there will still be some odor (Superman) left over from before. Make sure that you have enough sanitizer (or bleach) before you start the entire process or you could be up a creek.
Don't forget to stir occasionally.
After about 45 minutes, toss in the second ounce of Kent Goldings Hops, watch for tendency to boil over again, but basically just bask in the aroma that is wafting through your place. After another half hour toss in the Nugget Hops and the teaspoon of Irish Moss and continue boiling for 15 minutes.
Dump the wort into your bucket, add the remaining water, and seal tightly with the airlock in place. Now for the exciting part! In the past I've been keeping the water in the freezer to reduce cooling time and waiting until the next morning, generally, to pitch the yeast. I cooled the water today and also filled the bathtub with cold water where I placed the bucket. After 2 hours the temperature was 66 degrees!! Why hadn't I thought of that before? 2 hours!!! Easy peezy. Just after pitching the yeast I remembered to take a gravity reading using my new tool, "The Thief" (formal introductions some other time):
It was about 1.068 OG. No idea what to expect regarding alcohol content. One big mistake I made, and did not mention, may have a significant impact on alcohol content. If you notice in the picture above, the product is cloudy, full of pieces of grain, hops, etc. Gelatin (and Irish Moss for that matter, but in a different way) serves to clean the beer by weighting down particles of crud and sinking them. Be aware that gelatin finnings are added just before bottling, not prior to fermentation. Why would this be a problem? We do not need gelatin latching onto the yeast and sinking it before it can produce the alcohol it so wants to produce. But what would brewing be without a little ignorant risk taking?
UPDATE: At a little over 24 hrs, the fermentationis picking up speed. Temperature has jumped 7 degrees to 75F! Not great but what can one do on a shoestring?
UPDATE: 48hrs after pitching the yeast we are off and rolling. So much so that the temp is now 77 degrees. O well, we get what we get. Esters or not. Luckily there have been no explosions!
UPDATE:
Oh geez. Last night we reached an intolerable 81 degrees, quite higher than what is acceptable, and frankly higher than the temperature in my apartment. "Esters" beware! Today, to look at it, things have slowed a bit. You watch the airlock and nothing happens for a few seconds, then furious amounts of CO2 issue from the top, then nothing for a few seconds. . . Folks, we are 72 hrs into fermentation. I give it until Saturday before it's time to re-rack. Then we'll see what happens, take a current gravity reading, and have a first sip from The Thief. . . and so on.
UPDATE: 84 hours after pitching the yeast the temp is at 75 degrees, some bubbling in the airlock about every 30 seconds. The fruity brewery smell is mellowing to a floral hoppy smell which is hopeful. It will likely have fruity esters but hopefully they will blend well with the hops in the end. I don't smell any buttery popcorn or sulphur, but definitely yeast at this point. I'm tempted to crack it open and look in, but I know better. For now I'll just have to imagine a pale brown-green Krausen. I may not be able to re-rack until Sunday. But we'll see.
UPDATE (3/18):
I re-racked the beer today. It's possible that adding the gelatin finnings prior to fermentation had an impact, I'm not sure. However, I don't think I've ever brewed a beer this clear before!!!
7 days after pitching the yeast, this is what the beer looks like. The OG was 1.068 and the FG at this point is 1.018. I can't say, from looking at it, that much is going to change over the next week but the sample here had a bit of a CO2 bite to it, so maybe there is still work to be done! Wouldn't that be nice. Current approximate alcohol is 6.45%. Quite hoppy!UPDATE (3/24): I waited about 3 days after I re-racked it and nothing at all was going on with it so I bottled it! Still a little bit of yeast and hops had taken the time to settle out, so that was good. I didn't think there was anything left to settle! At any rate, bottling went off without a hitch and it's been sitting. I admit, last night I had a few. I wanted to see if it was indeed carbonating and, well, it is. But of course it's still pretty flat at this point. Flat and crystal clear. And buttery. And hoppy. The hops are a little spicy. And it's bitter and sweet, I think from the honey. Bubbles will do it a whole world of good. And chilled too.
Great job, dude, these are the kinds of posts I could read all day long.
ReplyDelete