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.