h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

December 18

Batch III - American Pale Ale

Ingredients
8 lb. Alexander's Pale Malt Extract
½ lb. Briess Crystal Malt 20° L
½ lb. Munton & Fison Carapils Malt 20° L
1 oz. Yakima Magnum Hops (Bittering)
1 oz. Cascade Hops (Flavoring)
1 oz. Cascade Hops (Finishing)
1 oz. Cascade Hops (Dry Hop, Optional)
Wyeast # 1332XL Northwestern Ale Yeast


For me, the third batch was to mark my departure from being a total rookie. So it would make sense that I pull some rookie moves before it was over. And it was so.

The wort had been boiling just fine after the malt was added. But when I dropped in the first bit of hops, things went a little wrong. I turned my head for literally five seconds and the wort boiled over, lost about eight ounzes on the stove top. This normally wouldn't bother me too much. However, this recipe was for a pale ale, the bittering hops are a key ingredient to the distincitve taste. I worry that the majority of the bittering hops was boiled over onto the stove.

Well, at least I know what burned hops look like now.

Anyway, after recovering from this little mishap, I continued on with the batch. I used bottled water this time, which helped out a lot with time and work. But that didn't mean other factors wouldn't surface. For the first time, I strained the wort before adding it to the fermenting bucket. This was because of the amount of pelleted hops I had been using. Leaving all of them in the bucket may have caused some undesirable tastes to surface.

But I could not even understand the amount of junk that I had to filter out. It took hours to sift through the hops refuse. I mean, I couldn't even filter a funnels worth through without it backing up. In the end, I think I lost about a gallon and a half worth of water due to the hops.

Anyway, I digress. I had to add a gallon or two of filtered water to bring the total volume up.

Total volume - 5 1/2 gallons
Specific gravity - 1.056

Looking forward to this batch. I've been becoming more and more a fan of bitter, hoppy, heavy ales of late. We shall see where my homebrewing takes me. I am sure that I will make more mistakes as time goes on, but I am no longer a stranger to the process.

and Ariston said...Let there be beer! and there was beer. and it was good.

Cheers!

On December 23rd, I transferred the beer into the secondary fermenter.

Specific Gravity - 1.022

Tastes good so far.

Bottled on January 1st.

Specific gravity - 1.019

Could have had more alcohol and hops. I'm being too conservative.