Brew Day - Cream Ale #2 - Swamp Cooler

A friend of mine was really interested to see how homebrewing worked, so we decided to brew up the Cream Ale since what I had left of the first batch was quickly crushed at a party a few weeks ago. He asked a ton of questions and I may have converted him. Time will tell!

Pretty standard brew day with all of it going as planned. I have a rather detailed checklist that I use for my brew day and I found that now that I have a few AG batches in that I didn't look at it often. It was a good feeling to know that I'm becoming so comfortble with the process and that I can start to focus on refining it.

If you are interested in the recipe, you can find it here. The only thing I did different was add a 1/8 lb of Golden Light DME at 30 mins. I did this because I use the DME to make starters and there wasn't enough to make another starter and it was getting older, so instead of just tossing it, decided to add it to the wort.

Temperature in my storage area were hanging out near 70 and I'd like to ferment a cooler. Temperatures are also supposed to climb to near 90 into the week so I figured I'd set up a swamp cooler so I could keep the beer at a constant temperature.

Checked it this morning and we had good activity in th airlock and the beer was sitting around 67ish. I'm happy with that. I'm monitor the temps and put a frozen quart jug in the tub if needed to keep the water cool.

Brew Day - Amber Ale

It been around a week since my last brew day. Wanted to post an update sooner but have just been busy with other stuff (yeah, I know brewing should be priority).

For this brew session I did an Amber Ale. I'd say it was a very successful brew day and an important one for me personally. This was my 10th batch. As I prepared for this "special" occasion I tried to figure out ways to remember #10. The highlight of the day was the my dad helped me brew. While I live in Ohio, my parents live in New York and they were in for a visit. My dad wanted to see the process of brewing so I was happy to show him. He asked a lot of questions and seemed interested so that was a great feeling. I don't think I convinced him to become a brewer (wasn't my intention anyway), but I think he can respect my obession with it.

This was just my 3rd AG batch and for the first time I had to add some boiling water to the mash to get it up to where I wanted it. Though my strike water was where I wanted it, I had some heat lose in the transfer and still learning to dial-in on my system. I keep taking notes and I'll learn to be better.

I was able to hit all of my numbers and was at around a 85% efficiency so was very happy with that. The beer started out at 1.045 and I just took a gravity reading (one week out) and I was at 1.013. I'll keep it in the fermenter for another 2 week so I'm sure I knock out another point or two and that gets me right where I wanted.

Here's the recipe....

FL Amber
American Amber Ale
Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (G):           5.5
Total Grain (lb):         10.000
Total Hops (oz):          3.50
Original Gravity (OG):    1.046  - Mine came in at 1.045
Final Gravity (FG):       1.012
Alcohol by Volume (ABV):  4.52 %
Colour (SRM):             13.6
Bitterness (IBU):         36.1   (Tinseth)
Boil Time (Minutes):      70

Grain Bill
----------------
6.750 lb American 2-Row (67.5%)
1.000 lb Vienna (10%)
0.500 lb Crystal 120 (5%)
0.500 lb Crystal 80 (5%)
0.500 lb Victory (5%)
0.500 lb Wheat Malt (5%)
0.250 lb Crystal 40 (2.5%)

Hop Bill
----------------
0.50 oz Magnum Pellet (14.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
0.50 oz Cascade Pellet (8% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
0.50 oz Willamette Pellet (4.8% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
1.00 oz Cascade Pellet (8% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil)
1.00 oz Willamette Pellet (4.8% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil)

Single step Infusion at 156°F for 60 Minutes.  - I came in closer to 154°F.

Fermented at 68°F with WLP001 - California Ale

The first taste out of the fermenter was pretty nice as well. I think a nice balance of malt and hops. Still really soon to get the full potential but its always encouraging when a early taste doesn't taste horrible.

On the hops front, the continue to grow. They are not nearly as aggressive as what I see on the message boards but I'm hopefully for at least some harvest later this year.

Brew Day - Cream Ale

So All Grain batch #2 is in the books. Another pretty good brew day overall. I'm happy with it, but there are still parts of the process that I want to clean up. I had a small stuck sparge but was able to get out of it by moving the grains around, but it taught me a lot about how my mash tun works so I can avoid that in the future (see below).

My original gravity came up a few points short of where I wanted to be but that could have been due to a little extra volume of water post boil. I left a lot of trub in the kettle, which I typically don't do, cause I wanted to test to see if I get a cleaner product in the end.

Just getting to the boiling point.

Above you can see how my braid came out of the grain bed. Next time I need to just spin it/bend it so that it turns down below the grains. Once the tip was exposed to air, that's when I had issue with the sparge. After I got it back below the grain bed, all was fine.

A 1L starter just before putting it on a stir plate.

Here's the recipe for this Brew Day

FL Cream Ale

Recipe Specs

----------------
Batch Size (G):           5.25
Total Grain (lb):         8.750
Total Hops (oz):          1.00
Original Gravity (OG):    1.046  (°P): 11.4
Colour (SRM):             4.2   (EBC): 8.3
Bitterness (IBU):         17.5   (Average)
Boil Time (Minutes):      70

Grain Bill

----------------
4.500 lb American 2-Row (51.43%)
2.000 lb Vienna (22.86%)
1.500 lb Flaked Corn (17.14%)
0.750 lb Crystal 10 (8.57%)

Hop Bill

----------------
0.5 oz Cluster Pellet (7.6% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)

0.5 oz Mt. Hood Pellet (4.7% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)

Misc Bill

----------------

Single step Infusion at 150°F for 60 Minutes.

Fermented at 66°F with Wyeast 1056 - American Ale (1L Starter)

Brew Day - American Pale Ale

Here are pictures of my last brew day.  This was my first all grain batch. Nailed all my numbers perfectly and was very happy with my first AG attempt. Flavor turned out great too, I think its my best batch yet!

Getting help from my assistant brewer.

FL Pale Ale

American Pale Ale

Recipe Specs

----------------
Batch Size (G):           5.25

Total Grain (lb):         11.375

Total Hops (oz):          3.00
Original Gravity (OG):    1.059  (°P): 14.5
Colour (SRM):             7.9   (EBC): 15.6
Bitterness (IBU):         37.9   (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes):      60

Grain Bill

----------------
10.500 lb American 2-Row (92.31%)
0.750 lb Crystal 40 (6.59%)
0.125 lb Crystal 60 (1.1%)

Hop Bill

----------------
1.0 oz Cascade Leaf (7.5% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 oz Cascade Leaf (7.5% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 oz Cluster Pellet (7.5% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 oz Cascade Leaf (7.5% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 oz Cluster Pellet (7.5% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil)

Misc Bill

----------------

Single step Infusion at 152°F for 60 Minutes.

Fermented at 67°F with Safale US-05

Recipe Generated with BrewMate