Eric picked up the necessary ingredients from the West Boylston Homebrew Emporium. Our note-taking was much better this time. Also, we finally got a thermometer so we can properly gauge when to pitch, etc etc. Also got a strainer to filter out the hot/cold breaks and hops when moving to fermenter. Also, we got unscented soap for cleaning. The polyethelene plastic buckets are quite porous and tend to retain some floral scents from regular dish detergent. Maybe that caused some of the acetaldehyde notes in our previous batches.
Ingredients
For the most part, the store had everything we needed, but some things needed to be substituted due to availability. To that end, find the following table.
| Requested | Purchased |
| 6.6 lbs. (2 cans) LME | " |
| 0.5 lbs Crystal 60oL Malt | " |
| 0.5 oz. Target Hops (9% AA) | 0.45 oz. UK Target Hops (10% AA) |
| 1.5 oz East Kent Goldings Hops (5% AA) | 1.5 oz. UK Kent Goldings Hops (5% AA) |
| Wyeast 1099/Whitbread Ale Yeast | London Ale Yeast (liquid) |
Brew Method
August 17th, 2007
Added the two cans of LME to a hot water bath to soften the syrup, left in the bath until they were needed.
Boiled three gallons of water, and added to cleaned/sanitized fermenter, sat in ice bath to cool, awaiting wort.
Boiled ~2.5-3 gallons of water in the boil pot, and instead of turning the heat off for steeping, we just turned the heat down.
Steeped our crystal grain for thirty minutes aggressively. Mmmmm love that malt smell.
Added one can of LME, and brought to a boil. We didn't achieve much foaming, but there definitely seemed to be a hot break in the wort (egg-drop soup visuals). Proceeded.
T=60min
Added 0.45 oz. Target hops (10% AA)
T=30min
Added 0.75 oz UK Kent Goldings hops (5% AA). Wort temperature = 208oF. Gave a little stir to prevent pot scalding.
T=15min
Added 0.75 oz UK Kent Goldings hops (5% AA) and 1 teaspoon of Irish Moss. Wort temperature = 209oF.
T=5min
Added second can of 3.3lbs LME to wort, stirred in and dissolved.
T=0min
Turned off the heat, let tun sit for a minute, and proceeded directly to ice bath.
Used two bags of ice (fully melted, need more next time). Stirred the wort in the pot to move more along the outside of the pot, cool down more. Temperature reached 88o F in ten minutes and stayed there. Bath temperature was ~75.
Original gravity reading is 1.050. Predicted per recipe is 1.047.
Poured wort violently into fermenter (already holding 3 gallons of pre-boiled water) through our new strainer. We kept a LOT of shit out. Excellent. Washed, rinsed & sanitized boil pot, poured the wort back in, and then back into the fermenter again. Good aeration.
Pitched our yeast at 88.2o F, stirred in.
Filled our airlock with sanitizer solution this time instead of regular tap water.
Fermentation
Sitting in the basement...
Began fermenting between 31 and 33 hours after pitching.
Temperature of the wort is 68o F... 20o cooler than pitching temperature. We really need to cool better.
September 5, 2007
Racked to carboy. The beer may or may not have had an apply smell to it, depending on whether you ask Mike or Eric. It is very clear, always a good sign. Fingers crossed for bottling day...
Bottling
September 21, 2007
Thank you jeebus! Brought the carboy up from the basement and took a look... niiiiice and clear, no haze. Beautiful reddish color. Took a whiff off the carboy, and it smells like beer!! HOORAY!!
For this batch, we primed with 10oz of dried malt extract instead of dextrose or corn sugar or anything like that.
We got 23 bottles out of it, and had enough left over to give a sip. And mmm it tastes good. Tasted a bit like DME because we put some in for priming, but you could definitely taste the beer under there. AND the alcohol. Sooooo good.
Final Gravity: 1.015. Yields 4.5% ABV.
Tasting
November 5, 2007
Just noticing that we never updated the tasting section for this brew. Well, we tried it two weeks after bottling it, and it tasted a bit funky, almost like it had too much DME added for the priming. We used 10oz, leaving 6oz in the bag. It doesn't taste bad, just has a bit of a funky taste to it. But it's drinkable, and it's actually ok.
Notes
- Get more ice. At least four bags.
- Maybe steep the grains for only 20-25 minutes, maybe we're getting too much tannins into our wort, contributing to bitter off-flavors.
- Construct a copper tubing wort chiller for the next brew with submersible pump.
- Use a carboy for primary fermentation as well?
- Maybe the culprit for the previous two batches is stuck fermentation, due to pitching the yeast at too high a temperature.
- PITCH WHEN PROPERLY COOLED!
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