Yesterday I brewed an American Pale Ale from the recipe in Brewing Classic Styles, of course scaled to 3 gallons. I also put a little more late hops in than the recipe would call for, and used Maris Otter as the base malt to give it a little more malty character.
A new homebrew store opened in my area a few weeks ago, and it's great because it's much closer to my place and therefore much less time consuming than going to the other place. And I got a new toy: a grain mill with an electric drill. The mill is used and I may need to lube it / clean it a bit because it seemed to have some trouble sucking in the grains to between the rollers, and so crushing did not go smoothly.
The brew itself, however, did.
American Pale Ale
6.25# Maris Otter
6oz Munich
6oz Victory
5oz White Wheat Malt
.4oz Nugget, 13%, 60 min
.3oz Cascade, 6%, 10min
.3oz Centenial, 10.5%, 10min
.4oz Cascade, 6%, 1min
.4oz Centenial, 10.5%, 1min
WLP001
Mash @ 152F
Brewed 5/11/14
Hit my mash temp well, but I overheated the sparge water. I let it cool a bit but probably did not get it as low as it should have been. Not sure if I extracted tannins and if so, how much of a problem it will create.
I also got the right volume, about 4.1 gallons, with an OG of 1.046. So, pretty good.
The boil went fine, but the cooling was a bit slow and I only got it down to 110F before putting the kettle in a tub of 60F water to finally chill.
At around 9:15pm, when the wort was about 70F, I siphoned it onto the yeast cake from the Brown Ale I recently brewed. The wort did not look as clear as it normally looks. Not sure if it's a problem with the crush or what. I hope it will clear up.
Placed the plastic carboy in a tub of 68F water. Ambient air temps around 60F, so it may cool down a little.
5/12/14, 5pm - Nice fermentation going. 62F ambient air.
So it seems you run in to the same issue I do when it comes to hopping 3 gallon batches. I am not able to work in full 1 oz additions most of the time and that leaves me with extra hops that usually go unused. For example your .4oz of nugget hops, what do you do with the remaining .6oz? Trash them or store them? I have considered purchasing large quantities of hops (1lbs or more bags) and learning to properly store them.
ReplyDeleteHi Gerg, yes I guess doing 3 gallons at a time you do end up with weird hop amounts and left-overs. I bought a small scale that is sensitive to .01 ounces, and I just keep left-overs in their bag, sealed with a rubber band, and then in the freezer in a big zip-loc. Cold temps and keeping the air out as much as possible should keep them fresh. Also I buy bulk hops from Nikobrew.com to cut down on costs. You can buy anywhere from 2oz packages to pounds at a time.
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