- 8lb American 2-Row
- 4lb Flaked Oats
- 1lb Munich
- 1lb Chocolate Malt (English 2-Row)
- 1/2lb Roasted Barley (English 2-Row)

~5g mash water, strike @ 175*F

one step infusion mash 60min

??g sparge water 175*F, collecting 6g

Boil

60min:
1oz Centennial (8.7%)
1oz Cascade (6.0%)

15min:
1oz Cascade (6.0%)

0min:
1oz Centennial (8.7%)
1 1/8oz ground coffee (Whole Foods Market/Winter Blend)

OG: 1.065

Pitched 1 packet Safale US-05

(Source, PDF)

2010JAN21

Transferred to secondary
SG: 1.020
Pitched 1 pkg Red Start Pasteur Champagne

NOTE: Roast malt aroma and flavor, then coffee notes, and a crisp hop bite.

2010JAN29

FG: 1.019 (6.59% ABV)
Primed with 1 1/4 cup Munton Light (DME)

48 12oz bottles (!)

NOTE: Rich coffee malt flavor. Bitter roasted malt turns to bitter hops.

- 13lb American 2 Row
- 1lb Crystal 20L

~4.5g mash water, strike @ 175F

one step infusion mash 60min

~4.5g sparge water @ 175F, collecting 6g

Boil

60min:
1oz Northern Brewer pellets (11.0%)

0min:
1oz Cascade plugs (7.3%)

OG: Unknown

Pitched White Labs California Ale Yeast WLP001

NOTES
Brew day complicated by children. Excessive boil over, resulting in a finished volume of less than 5 gallons. Also neglected to measure the specific gravity. Since it’s not yet fermenting, I may still be able to get a reasonable reading.

2010DEC??

Racked to secondary.
2oz Centennial pellets (?%)

2010DEC19

FG 1.021

Primed with 3/4 cup brown sugar
34 12oz bottles

2010DEC23

Overly effervescent. Thick head, pours cloudy, golden. Piney hop aroma. Sweet malt flavor then a hop rush. Piney bitterness lasts and lasts. Cloying? Maybe.

2010JAN26

Chill excessively. Open at sink. Barely ease up the cap. Let all gas escape. Pour, gently, gently. Pours an insane head. Head never really disappears, it subsides, as thick as shaving cream. Grassy, apricot, hop aroma. Fully carbonated. Cloudy, yeast and flecks of hops. Rich mailt flavor, then quickly piney, astringent hop-flavor. Not flabby, there’s a malt backbone. Pucker-inducing, highly hopped.

I blew it tonight.

Followed the recipe and mash schedule for Austin Homebrew’s Blue Moon clone, reprinted on homebrewtalk.com

The mash was a mess.  First off, the AH mash schedule yields a super loose mash by the time you’re done (1.7 quarts/lb), which makes establishing clear runnings a real pain in the ass, cause the grain bed doesn’t settle out.

Secondly, despite hitting my protein rest temp dead on, and double checking the second infusion calculations to go from the protein rest to the saccrification rest, I ended up 10*F too hot for my saccrification.  Instead of my target of 158*F, i ended up closer to 170*F.   Total mystery as to why.

Lastly, when the runnings finally cleared out a bit (though still plenty cloudy from all the wheat and such), the sparge slowed to a trickle.  At this point, it was late at night, and the thought of waiting around 2 hours for the sparge to finish, just to wait another 2 for the boil and chill, sounded like madness.  I dumped the grains.  Screw it.

My dear girlfriend really wants a blue moon clone, however, so i’m gonna have to try this one again.  Next time:

• get the mash temps right
• use rice hulls to try to keep the sparge moving
• maybe use less water for the protein rest, so that the final mash won’t be so loose
• don’t fuck it up

I was looking to make a spicy, refreshing IPA like Lagunitas. With help from our local brew store, we decided on this recipe.

Grains

• 1 lbs 2 Row Pale
• 7 oz Dextrine Cara Pils
• 5 oz Crystal
• 3 oz Munich
• Malt Extract
• 5 lbs 9 oz Light Dried Malt Extract

Hops

• 60 mins: 1 1/2 oz Challenger A.A. 7%
• 30 mins: 1/2 oz Cascade A.A. 7.3%, 1/4 oz Willamette A.A. 5.6%
• End of Boil: 1 1/2 oz Cascade

Yeast

• Safale 05 American Ale Yeast

OG: 1.042, FG: 1.020

Despite my past unfounded prejudice against hop pellets, malt powder, and dried yeast–I used to live in the Pacific NW and we only used freeze dried hops, extract syrup, and liquid yeast–this turned out great. I’ve since found the Safale dried yeasts to be reliable and have excellent flavor. I pitched the dry yeast directly into the wert.

Brew day: 2010-03-28

Recipe straight from Scott Russell’s North American Clone Brews

Targets:

OG: 1.058, FG: 1.012, ABV: 5.9%, 28 IBU

• 8 lb Belgian 2-row (3.5-4*L)
• 1 lb Belgian Special B (130-220*L)
• 8 oz Crystal 120*L
• 8 oz Munich I (5-7*L)
• 1 1/2 tsp gypsum

Single infusion mash, heat 3.5 gal mash water to 164*F, mash in. Hit target temp of 152*F.  Dressed my 5 gal rubbermaid cooler in a Carhartt jacket, it held temp within a degree for 70 minutes.  Target mash time was 90 min, but I didn’t have my sparge water ready at that point, so mash ended up going more like 120 minutes.

Recirculated 2-3 quarts, drew off ~1 gal, then recirculated another quart or two, then started the sparge with 166-168*F water, two cups at a time, using a total of ~3 3/4 gallons of sparge water.

At this point, I measured 1.043 @ 132*F, which corrects to roughly 1.055.  I had 6 gal of wort, so thats 330 total points.  To hit my target of 1.058, I should end up with roughly 5.7 gal post-boil.

• 5 AAU Brewer’s Gold  @ 60 min (0.5 oz x 9.8%)
• 4 AAU Saaz @ 15 min (1.4 oz x 2.8%)
• 1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 min

chilled down, ended up with 5.6 gal at 1.056.  Two points low, I’m happy.

Pitched Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey Ale at ~72*F.

- 9lb Belgian Pilsner

~3g mash water, strike @ 160F

one step infusion mash 60min

~5.5g sparge water @ 210F, collecting ~7.5g

Boil

60min:
1.5oz Hallertau (3%)

10min:
0.5oz Saaz (2.8%)

OG: 1.042

Pitched Wyeast Activator Trappist High Gravity 3787

(source)

2010MAR31

Racked to secondary

SG: 1.011

2010APR09

FG: 1.006 (5.3% ABV)

Primed with 2/3 cup brown sugar

56 12oz bottles

Thin mouthfeel. Nice, full pilsner malt flavor. Crisp finish. Funky yeast flavors: not so much.

Based on a “Black 47 Stout” recipe from North American Clone Brews.  Black 47 is brewed by The Old Nutfield Brewing Company of Derry, NH, but as I’ve never had any of their beers, I don’t quite know what to expect out of this brew, hence “Black Box”.

[2010-02-28] Boil Day

• 3 lb UK 2-row pale malt (1.8 L)
• 1 lb roasted barley (525 L)
• 8 oz black patent malt (500 L)
• 8 oz crystal 120 L
• 1 1/2 tsp gypsum
• 6 AAU Northern Brewer (0.8 oz of 8.1% AA) for 60 min
• 1/2 tsp Irish moss for 15 min
• 3 lb LD Carlson Briess Sparkling Amber dry malt extract for 15 min
• 4 AAU Fuggles (0.8 oz of 4.8% AA) for 5 min

steep all above grains (two giant muslin sacks worth) in 155*F water for 45 min (started with 5 3/4 gal), then bring to boil

Ended up with 1.018 @ 78*F, which corrects to 1.021; using hopville’s beer calculus, I worked out that I got about 56% efficiency from my “super steep” method.

The recipe I was following has OG at 1.047, so I needed to work out how much dry malt extract I’d need to add.  Fortuitously, the 3 lb that I calculated I needed was exactly how much I had on hand.

As I was bringing the wort to a boil, I added ~1.5 tsp of gypsum.  I’d never used the stuff before, maybe I should have added it before the steep, since I’ve read that its supposed to alter the pH, which has an effect on the mash.

Add Northern Brewer, boil 45 min

Off heat, add dry malt extract and Irish moss, return to boil for 10 min

Add Fuggles, boil 5 minutes

Chill to ~70 deg with immersion chiller (took 30-45 min)

Pitched Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale using the “immediate” method, rather than the “let swell for at least 3 hrs” method.  It was probably around 10PM when the yeast met the wort.

Gravity was 1.049 @ 68*F, which corrects to 1.050; a little high.  I have about 4.8 gals in the ale pail, so that’s 240 gravity units.  If I want 1.047, I need to add water to get to 5.1 gal, so I put about 6 cups of water on to boil and cool (dig a hole; now fill it in).  When it got to ~70*F,  I popped the lid on the ale pail and poured in the water.  I didn’t bother to take a hydrometer reading (cleaned and put away), but the math doesn’t lie, dude.  OG should be 1.047 for my now 5.1 gal of wort.

This is actually quite a delicious brew.  I was concerned that the dry hopping might make for a smack across the face of hop aroma, but I think this has really good balance.  I really like the Cascade flavor, I think they’ll become a staple of my brewing for American pale ales.  I’m very pleased.  Hopefully it gets even better after another week or two in the bottles, but I’m going to have a hard time staying away from them in the mean time.

FG: 1.014 @ 62*F

primed with 5 oz corn sugar

yield 46 x 12 oz bottles

FG 1.010 (6.5% ABV) courtesy the ABV calculator

Primed with 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
56 12oz bottles