Brewing

We also bought some spring top bottles thinking that capping would be difficult (also on the advice of Alton Brown). This was a mistake. Capping is easy, the hardest part is cleaning the bottles and you have to do that with the spring top bottles anyway.

If you drink alot of beer like us, you have a limitless supply of free bottles. Use them.

For our first recipe, we chose a "kit" (like making a cake from a box) from Brewer's Best - and American Ale. This was a good call. Though it turns out that you can essentially completely make up a recipe, starting with a kit built confidence to develop our own brews.

The beer was ok, though some of the flavors were a little off. We suspect this was caused by pouring the hot wort directly over commercial ice to cool it down. In subsequent batches, we have cooled the wort with an ice bath, and have had favorable flavors.

Recipes

Mark I - Brewer's Best American Ale

The first batch, brewed from a Brewer's Best kit. Produced a beautiful copper orange ale with a solid finger of head. Carbonation was fairly good. Flavors and aroma slightly off, aroma worsened with age.

Mark II - Brewer's Best English Brown Ale

Better than Mark 1, still had some off flavors. Suspect this is from pouring the wort over two gallons of commercial ice to cool it.

Mark III - American Amber Ale

This was our first beer where we constructed the recipe ourselves. It is loosely modeled after an American Ale from the Complete Joy of Homebrewing. We of course made some changes.

Brewed May 13, 2009

9:10PM

8oz crystal malt added to 2.5 gallons of water. Water temp brought to 160-170 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeast pouch activated and left on counter.

Used tap water, crystal malt domestic 90 lovibond. Yeast: Wyest Laboratories American Ale in an activator pack.

9:33 PM

Crystal malt steeped for 20 mins.

9:53 PM

Crystal malt removed from wort, began heating wort to a boil.

10:03 PM

Wort at low boil. 6.5 lbs malt extract added. 2oz Cascade pellet hops added, wort brought back to low boil. Stirred to keep malt from burning on bottom of pot.

Malt extract was one Brewmaster 6 lb bottle of light liquid malt extract and 1/2 lb pale malt extract from 1 lb can of Alexander's Kicker. The bittering hops used were Cascade pellet hops 5.6% alpha acid.

10:13 PM

Wort kept at low boil for 55 minutes.

11:06 PM

1/2 teaspoon of Irish Moss added to boiling wort for clarity. Wort kept at low boil for 10 additional minutes.

11:14 PM

0.94 oz Willamette pellet 5.3% alpha acid finishing hops added to boiling wort. Hops thoroughly blended into boiling wort.

11:16 PM

Poured hot wort into 2 gallons of chilled water in the fermenter suspended in an ice bath. Tap water added to bring total wort to five gallons (about 1/2 gallon added). Wort cooled to ~77 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cooling process took ~45 mins. The ice bath was composed of 30 lbs of ice in a keg bucket with a little water and salt.

Midnight

Yeast added to chilled wort. Original Gravity 1.0502 in.

This beer was actually pretty good! It is a medium amber color with a moderate amount of head. It is slightly under carbonated. Despite only ~4% ABV, the beer finishes with a moderate alcoholic taste. This decreases the drinkability significantly.

This beer, while good, was a little too dark for a summer beer. With some modifications, would make a good fall brew.

Mark IV - Pale Ale

This one is in bottles right now! It was loosely based on "Whitey's Gone Fishin' Pale Ale" found in The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Again, we couldn't help but make some changes.

Brewed July 12, 2009

6:45 PM

Two gallons of bottled spring water, six pounds golden light Briss malt extract, 0.6 lbs Alexander's Sun Country pale malt extract, and one ounce of Amarillo hops added to the brewpot and heated to a boil.

7:05 PM

Wort at low boil. Boiled for 50 minutes.

7:56 PM

Added 0.75 ounces of Saaz hops. Boiled for 10 additional minutes. Should have added Irish moss here.

8:06 PM

Added 0.5 ounces of Willamette hops (5.6% alpha acid) turned off heat, put lid on, let stand 5 minutes.

8:12 PM

Placed wort pot into ice bath in sink. 20 lbs ice was used.

8:40 PM

Wort at 64 degrees Fahrenheit - a little colder than desired. Removed wort pot from ice bath and poured wort into fermenter. A considerable amount of sediment was left on the bottom of the pot. Poured three gallons of water into fermenter to bring total wort to five gallons.

8:45 PM

Pitched Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast into 64 degree Fahrenheit wort.

8:55 PM

Initial Gravity 1.045 inches

As an experiment, we took gravity measurements regularly during the fermentation after the airlock bubbling has significantly slowed.

July 17, 2009 6:45 PM

Gravity 1.014 inches

July 18, 2009 7:40 PM

Gravity 1.013 inches

July 20, 2009

Bottled using typical methods. Gravity 1.013 inches.

Resulted in a pale ale which is quite drinkable, probably the most drinkable brew thus far. Nice session ale.

Mark V - Leftover Ale

After doing four batches we had a few leftover ingredients. From those was born this ale.

Brewed July 23, 2009

9:45 PM

8.5 ounces crystal malt 90 lovibond in grain bag placed into 2.5 gallons bottled spring water in the wort pot. Began heating wort to 160-170° F.

10:14 PM

Wort at 160° F. Kept wort at 160-170° F for 20 mins.

10:34 PM

Six pounds golden light Briss malt extract, 0.6 lbs Alexander's Sun Country pale malt extract, 0.5 ounces of Amarillo hops, and 0.5 ounces Saaz hops added to the brewpot. Wort heated to a boil.

10:51 PM

Wort boiling. Boiled 47 minutes.

11:39 PM

Added 1.5 teaspoons of Irish Moss and 0.5 ounces Willamette hops to wort. Boiled wort 10 additional minutes.

11:49 PM

0.4 ounces Saaz hops added to wort. Wort removed from heat. Let stand 5 minutes.

11:54 PM

Wort in pot placed in ice bath, cooled to 70° F.

12:21 AM

Wort cooled and added to 2.5 gallons of chilled spring water in fermenter bucket. Wort temperature is 70° F. Wyeast American Ale 2 in activator pack (activated earlier) pitched.

Original Gravity: 1.046 inches

July 31, 2009 3:31 PM

Final Gravity: 1.013 inches

Not a bad brew. Not hopped enough, comes off like an Octoberfest.

Mark VI - American Pils "B-Day Brew"

Mitch and I had our hearts set on brewing up a SweetWater IPA clone, but Hop City's homebrew supplies were nearly cleaned out. We still wanted to brew so we threw together a recipe based loosely around Whitey's Pale Ale. Brewed the day before my birthday (9/20).

The actual recipe bears nearly no semblance to the published recipe. It took a serious turn towards a Pilsner. Pilsen malts, Saaz, Amerillo and Tettnang hops make for a powerful (~5.5%, 35 IBUs) "American" Pilsner. As soon as it finishes fermentation, I'll give tasting notes.

Seems I lost the exact recipe, but I have the hopville notes. I will reproduce the recipe as best as I can here.

Malts and Fermentables

Estimated 1.053 OG, 1.013 FG. Batch 5 gallons.

• 6# Pilsner Liquid Extract
• 1# 6oz Pale Liquid Extract

Hops

Estimated 41.7 IBU

• 60 min 0.7oz Saaz
• 60 min 1.2oz Amarillo
• 10 min 1.2oz Saaz
• 1 min 1oz Tettnang

Yeast

Wyeast London Ale

Notes

Used a pinch of Irish moss to help clarity, scale used was only accurate to tenths of an ounce.

Tasting Notes

This one started out very strange. It was very "green" with an odd taste of peppermint or wintergreen. After a few more weeks in the bottles, it turned into a very nice beer. It was often preferred over Mark IV, its weaker cousin.

Mark VII - Amber IPA

This started as a Sweetwater IPA clone, but again, got changed around and became more of a Amber IPA.

We've started using hopville to design the recipies. The methodology goes somewhat like this: find hint of clone recipe (alcohol, color, HBUs), use suggested hop profile, design malts for color and alcohol. Our hopville recipe is here.

4:35

Grain 1# crystal 40 malt, 1# crystal 60 malt, added to 140° F water, bring to 160°-170° F and steep.

4:45

Wort at 160° F, steep 20 mins.

5:05

Removed grain, added 8# amber malt extract.

5:20

Added 1oz Columbus and 1.75oz Kent Goldings hops.

6:05

0.75 Columbus, 1oz Kent Goldings added. Boil 15 more mins.

6:10

2tbsp Irish Moss added.

6:20

0.75oz Columbus, 0.5oz Kent Goldings added. Heat turned off.

6:25

Wort pot put in ice bath.

7:00

Wort at 72° F, added to fermemter, added water to wort to bring to 5 gallons.Wyeast American Ale II yeast pitched.

Fermentation Notes

Fermented for ~5 days in primary, transferred to secondary and added 0.75 Columbus and 0.75 Kent Goldings hops.

1.060 OG, 1.018 FG

Kegging

This one we kegged! Way easier to keg than to bottle. Force carbonated for a few hours than reduced to ~7PSI for serving. Never quite figured out a good serving pressure. After kegging we tried it, decided it wasn't quite ready and let it sit for another two weeks.

Tasting

Dark hoppy beer. Imagine if a typical California IPA had a love child with a brooding NE IPA. Maybe needed a little more sweetness.

Mark VIII - Belgian Tripel IPA

This is an attempt at a Belgian Tripel IPA. There are only a few commercial examples including Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel, Urthel Hop-It. We brewed Wednesday Feb 17.

Shooting for around 8.8% ABV, 58 IBUs. Hopville Recipe

6:23

2# Belgian Pale, 2# Belgian Pils in medium grain sock placed in 3 gallons of water and heated to 160° F.

6:23

2# Belgian Pale, 2# Belgian Pils in medium grain sock placed in 3 gallons of water and heated to 160° F.

7:01

Wort at 160° F, steep grains for 20 minutes.

7:22

Steeped grains for 20 mins, added light candy sugar, 3# Amber liquid malt extract, 5# pilsner malt extract. Bring wort to boil.

7:50

Wort boiling, added 2.5 ounces Cascade hops (7.4% AA), 1 ounce Columbus hops (14% AA).

8:20

1 ounces Cascade hops (6% AA), 0.5 ounces Cascade hops (7.4% AA) added to wort.

8:52

2 ounces Sterling hops (6% AA).

8:56

Flame out.

9:00

Wort in pot in ice bath

9:50

0G 1.082, Wyeast Belgian Strong Ale pitched (note low flocculation) wort at 62° F.

So the yeast apparently didn't take, no CO2 generation 16 hours later. So 20 hours later we pitched another smack pack of Wyeast Belgian Strong Ale yeast. 16 hours later it was bubbling along strong.

About a week later (Feb 25) we transferred the beer to the carboy. SG:1.024-1.025. We added 2 oz Amarillo hops (7.5%AA). Omitted Tettnang because they were not fresh. Note, greater than usual loss to trub due to increased hops and yeast.

Equipment

It's not difficult to brew beer, though there is some equipment which is necessary

There is some equipment which becomes necessary as your recipes become more complex

Many more gizmos are needed for full grain brewing which we have not done yet.

Consumables

In addition to the recipe ingredients, every batch requires some additional consumables.

Notes

Hops

The Complete Joy of Homebrewing recommends that "if hop pellets are used, use 15% fewer hops".

Water

We have had no problems using standard city (Atlanta) water. We do no filter or boil our water before using it. Commercial breweries in our area (Atlanta Brewing Company, Sweetwater) do the same.

Nevertheless, it is often convenient use bottled water (maybe buy one or two gallons) because it allows you to chill and easily measure water.

If you must use bottled water, look for spring water.

Resources

There are two very excellent books about homebrewing which are highly recommended.