Rye IPA Batch #2 - 11/6/11

Grains & Ingredients

• 11.25 lb Rahr 2-Row Pale
• 2.75 Weyermann Rye Malt
• 1.0 Breiss Crystal 60
• 0.5 Breiss Carapils
• 0.5 Rahr White-Wheat Malt

Mash Schedule

• Sacch Rest: 5.25 gallons h2o - 153 deg - 60 min
• Mashout: 1.0 gallons h2o - 164 deg - 10 min

Boil Hop Additions

• First wort - Mt Hood - 1 oz
• 60 min - Columbus - 1 oz
• 30 min - Mt Hood - 1 oz
• 0 min - Mt Hood - 1 oz

Dry Hop Additions

• Secondary fermentation - Columbus - 1 oz

Yeast

• WYeast 1450

Batch Vital Statistics

• Pre-Boil Gravity= 1.056
  
• Original Gravity= 1.072
  
• Final Gravity= 1.020
• ABV= 6.83%

Rye IPA Batch #1 - 11/6/11

Grains & Ingredients

• 11.25 lb Rahr 2-Row Pale
• 2.75 Weyermann Rye Malt
• 1.0 Breiss Crystal 60
• 0.5 Breiss Carapils
• 0.5 Rahr White-Wheat Malt

Mash Schedule

• Sacch Rest: 5.25 gallons h2o - 153 deg - 60 min
• Mashout: 1.0 gallons h2o - 169 deg - 10 min

Boil Hop Additions

• First wort - Mt Hood - 1 oz
• 60 min - Columbus - 1 oz
• 30 min - Mt Hood - 1 oz
• 0 min - Mt Hood - 1 oz

Dry Hop Additions

• Secondary fermentation - Columbus - 1 oz

Yeast

• WYeast 1450

Batch Vital Statistics

• Pre-Boil Gravity= 1.065
  
• Original Gravity= 1.080
  
• Final Gravity= 1.020
• ABV= 7.88%

Nut Brown Ale

Our second beer scheduled for October 23 was the Nut Brown Ale. Northern Brewer once again supplied the ingredients, 8.5 lbs. of grain:

7.5 lb English Maris Otter
.25 lb Simpsons Chocolate
.25 lb Belgian Special B
.25 lb Belgian Biscuit
.25 lb Breiss Special Roast

Sacch' Rest: 154 deg for 60 min.
Mash Out: 167.7 deg for 10 min.

Hop Addition: 1 oz. Fuggle for 60 min.

Yeast Addition: White Labs English Ale Yeast (WLP002)

Recirculation:



Sparge:




Vital Statistics for the beer below:

Pre-boil gravity- 1.044**
Brewhouse efficiency- 79%
Original gravity- 1.054
Final gravity- 1.011
Abv- 5.67%

**Taking the Pre-boil Gravity:



GwH

Oatmeal Stout

With the time required to ferment, late October presents a good opportunity to get some beers ready for the holidays. On Sunday, October 23 Greg and I decided to embark upon an ambitious double-brew session, and had all of the ingredients for an Oatmeal Stout and a Nut Brown Ale.

First up was the Oatmeal Stout, and Northern Brewer once again provided us with the 9.0 lb. recipe as follows:

6.5 lb English Maris Otter
1.0 lb Flaked Oats
0.5 lb Simpsons Roasted Barley
0.5 lb Simpsons Chocolate
0.5 lb Simpsons Dark Crystal

For the Sacch' rest, we heated up 2.7 gal. of water to approximately 167 deg. and added the water and grain in the mash tun. The temperature was 154.5 deg. before we put the lid on. Target was 153 deg.

Mashout began with a 1 gallon addition of boiling water which brought the temperature up to 168.6. We mashed out for 10 minutes, and then recirculated the wort to create a nice grain bed for filtration during the sparge, video below:



We sparged with approximately 3 gal. of water and were able to yield a little under 6 gallons. To me this is the most exciting part of the entire brewing process, and so I typically left Greg to do all of the work while I recorded the action:



We brought the wort to a boil in the kettle and added 1 oz. Glacier hops for a 60 minute boil.

We then chilled the wort to pitching temperature, transferred into a brew bucket, and added Wyeast #1945 NB Neobritannia to get the fermentation started.

The Oatmeal Stout will take 2 weeks of primary fermentation and 2 weeks of secondary fermentation. After a few days sitting on CO2, the beer should be on tap around Thanksgiving.

Vital Statistics for the beer below:

Original gravity- 1.054
Brewhouse efficiency- 95% (Not sure this calculation is right, am positive we were not this good
Final gravity- 1.018
Alc. by Vol.- 4.73%

GwH

Irish Red Ale

The brew haus (aka Greg's place) was open for business unusually early on September 24th. Our first brew of the day was a pot of coffee at around 6:15am and we got started on the beer shortly afterward.

The Irish Red Ale recipe we used was from Northern Brewer and called for 8.75 lbs of grain:

7.5 lb Pale Malt - Rahr
.75 lb Caramel Pils Malt
.25 lb Special Roast Malt
.13 lb Biscuit Malt
.13 lb Chocolate Malt

We started off by bringing 3.5 gal strike water to 168 deg. We poured the hot water into the mash tun and added the grain. Our target was 153 deg, and our actual was 154.5 deg. A little high, but we figured the temperature would go down a bit during the 60 minute Sacch' rest.

After the Sacch' rest, we began the Mashout by adding 1 gallon of 175 deg water to the mash tun. Our target was to raise the temp to 170 deg, but we only got it up to 158 deg. Way off target, oh well.

After a 10 minute Mashout, we sparged the grain with 3.5 gallons of 170 deg water to rinse the remaining fermentable sugar in the grain and produce the wort. You can see a video of the sparge process below:

The wort collected in the brew kettle was then brought to a boil. The hop additions were as follows:

1 oz Willamette @ 60 min
1 oz US Golding @ 30 min

We then cooled the wort, and pitched our yeast. For this recipe we used Wyeast #1272 American Ale Yeast.

Keg tub, ice bath, great acquisition:




This beer will sit for 2 weeks in primary fermentation followed by 2 weeks secondary. Carbonation will take an additional week, meaning the beer will be ready to drink in approximately 5 weeks (and not 4 as I said in the video).

Vital Statistics for the beer are:

Pre-boil gravity- 1.033
Original gravity- 1.040
Brewhouse efficiency- 60.48%
Expected final gravity- 1.010-1.014
Expected alc by vol- 3.41%-3.94%

Actual Final gravity- 1.009
Actual alc by vol- 4.07%

GwH

The fruits of our labor

First pull of delicious homebrew off the kegerator. This is the cream ale. And, yes, that is the Jersey Shore in the background.


GwH

Kegging - second and third batches

After our initial kegging experience, the next two kegging sessions went off without a hitch.


9/10 - The cream ale finished fermenting after 3 weeks and reached a final gravity of 1.009, making the ABV around 4.46%.


9/18 - Our English Pale Ale finished fermenting and reached a final gravity of 1.010, making the ABV around 3.68%. The ABV seemed a bit low, and it is possible one of the gravity readings were incorrect.


Two more weekends, and two more beers kegged up... Coming out of the gates strong!


GwH

Kegging - first batch!

Today we kegged the first batch of Cream Ale. We cleaned the keg using PBW. Shook it around and then used Star Sans to sanitize the keg. We put about 2.5 gallons in each keg.


If we could do it over again we would have sanitized the spout on the fermentator. All in all it was an easy process.


We both put the regulator to 10 psi and decided to let it sit for a week while we both shop around for our own refrigerators.....


We did measure the gravity of the beer. It was right on at 1.007 (was supposed to be 1.006 to 1.012).


We did not measure the original gravity of the beer, so we were unable to calculate the ABV. However, several tastings later suggest the ABV to be around 4.5.

English Pale Ale

We decided to branch out and try a new recipe. We both liked Bass and decided to go with an English Pale Ale. The brewing took place on August 27, 2011. We used 9 pounds of Marris Otter and .5lbs of Crystal.


We brought the strike water to 164 degrees and mashed in at 151 degrees.


We had used teflon tape on the hot liquor tank to avoid future leaking. It worked perfectly. We added the four gallons of water at 175 degrees to the hot liquor tank.


We also brought the 1.5 gallons to a boil. When we added it to the mash we brought the temperature up to 168 degrees. We wanted 170 degrees, but this was the best we had done.

(this is us doing some spargin')

Our preboil gravity was 1.027 at 117.7 degrees, or 1.032 for gravity.

The original gravity was 1.040 at 97.7 degrees, or 1.045 for gravity.

The total wort came out to 7 gallons. The preboil gravity was 1.037.

The gravity at 100% efficiency was 1.051 gravity

75% efficiency was 1.038 gravity

Brew house efficiency 72.14%

Cream Ale run No. 2 - 8-19-11

We decided to order another batch of the ingredients for another cream ale.


At 1:20 pm we brought the three gallons of strike water to 162 degrees. We got the strike water in the cooler faster and the temperature were better.


Immediately upon getting the strike water up to temperature we began heating the 4 gallons for the hot liquor tank and set up a pot for the gallon and a half of boiling water.


Once we heated the water to 175 for the hot liquor tank we put it in the gatorade tank. Despite tightening the vales it leaked anyway. We got the water to a boil early on this one and added it to the mash. This brought the temp up to around 166 degrees.


We then added the boiling water to the mash and let rest for 10 minutes. After which we began sparging and getting our wort ready.


Here's a general timeline:


1:20 strike water at 162 degrees, mash was 151.1

2:20 Added boiling water - 1.5 gallons - brought temp to 166.6

2:30 we began to recirculate the wort

2:35 we began the sparge

2:48 the sparge ended

2:50 we began heating the wort

3:27 the wort began boiling

4:28 we began chilling the wort, took a reading, 128.7 degrees, original gravity of 1.030 = 1.043

5:09 wort to fermentor, 74 degrees

5:17 fermentor

American Ale - Crank it up - 8-13

George and Greg get down on there first brew. It's 3 pm and it's a Saturday. Things got real fast.


First brew is a cream ale. We heated the 3 gallons of strike water to around 162 degrees and put it in the cooler. The temp was slightly below 150 degrees. We mixed in the grain and let the games begin.





We then heated the water for the hot liquor tank. It took longer than expected. We heated four gallons to 175 degrees and put it in the other gatorade cooler. The valve on this was leaky and we lost some of the water. This caused us to rush on the sparge.


We also needed to bring 1.5 gallons to a boil. We ran out of time on this as well. We added the gallon and a half to the mash at about 190 degrees. This only brought the mash up to around 164 degrees, instead of 170 degrees.


During the sparge the false bottom clogged. We had to take the mash out and unclog the false bottom. We completed the sparge and ended up with just over five gallons of wort. We boiled this for an hour.


We then used cheese cloth to try to filter the beer best we could and reduce the trub.


We put it in the fermentor and let the bubbling begin....