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....