I liked the result of the live-blog style post for my last brew day, so I am going to do this one the same way.
I have gotten a little behind on my brewing lately. The farm has a gallon-per-minute leak somewhere in the underground plumbing for the outbuildings. We’ve decided to abandon that system in place. With a temporary solution in place, I can now safely chill my beer.
8:00 a.m. — I have the ingredients for two recipes and I have to decide which to make today. The first set is the now-complete ingredients for the CJ’s House of the Rising Sun JPA that I was going to make last time. The other set is for Don Osborn’s Arrogant Bastard clone. Both are extract with specialty grain recipes. I am going to use dry yeast in whichever one I brew.
9:08 a.m. — I have decided to go with the AB clone. Here is the recipe as I am going to make it:
Recipe: Don Osborn’s Arrogant Bastard clone
OG: 1.062 (15.21 °P)
FG: 1.015 (3.83 °P)
ADF: 75%
IBU: 79.1
Color: 14 SRM (35.9 EBC)
Boil: 75 minutes
Pre-Boil Volume: 7.25 gallons (27.4 L)
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.055 (13.5 °P)
| Extract | Weight | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Muntons Light DME | 5 lbs. (2.27 kg) | 50 |
| Muntins Amber DME | 3 lbs. (1.35 kg) | 30 |
| Steeping Grains | ||
| Dingemans Special B (140–155 °L) | 0.5 lbs. (0.23 kg) | 5 |
| Dingemans Biscuit (18–27 °L) | 0.5 lbs. (0.23 kg) | 5 |
| Dingemans Aromatic (17–21 °L) | 0.5 lbs. (0.23 kg) | 5 |
| Dingemans Cara 45 (40–54 °L) CaraMunich | 0.5 lbs. (0.23 kg) | 5 |
| Hops | IBU | |
| Chinook 9.9% AA, 75 min. | 1 oz. (28 g) | 42.7 |
| Chinook 9.9% AA, 45 min. | 1 oz. (28 g) | 36.4 |
| Chinook 9.9% AA, 0 min. | 1 oz. (28 g) | 0 |
| Yeast | ||
| Fermentis Safale US-05 | ||
Fermentation and Conditioning
Use 11 grams of properly rehydrated dry yeast. Ferment at 64 °F (17.8 °C). When finished, carbonate the beer to approximately 2.5 volumes.
10:30 a.m. — Brewery set up. Ingredients collected. Heating 3 quarts of water for steep. Crushing grains. The CaraMunich smells a bit like Cracker Jack. It is very tasty, caramelly, crunchy, grainy. The Biscuit has a grassier, dirtier smell. Flavor is bready and biscuity. The Aromatic actually has relatively little aroma dry. The flavor is subtle, as well. Vaguely sweet. The Special B has a grainy, toasty smell. The flavor is slightly sweet, slightly burnt, toasty, with a very slight coffee flavor.
11:02 a.m. — Grains steeping at in 3 quarts of 158°F water for 30 minutes.
11:30 a.m. — Grains done steeping. Adding to brewpot. Adding DME. Adding water to bring volume to 7.25 gallons.
11:50 a.m. — Starting burner boil. Pre-boil gravity 1.055 (13.5 °P).
12:54 p.m. — Boiling. Added Bittering hops and started 75 minute timer.
1:09 p.m. — Rehydrating yeast.
1:25 p.m. — Added flavor hops.
1:50 p.m. — Placing chiller to boil kettle to sterilize.
1:55 p.m. — Adding Irish Moss.
2:00 p.m. — Adding yeast nutrient.
2:10 p.m. — Flame out. Adding aroma hops. Starting to chill.
2:28 p.m. — Chilled. Transferring to fermenter.
3:00 p.m. — Transferred. Original gravity 1.064 (15.6 °P). Rocking to aerate.
3:20 p.m. — Moved fermenter to fermentation chamber. Pitched yeast. Set thermostat. Time to clean up.
Update: 4/19 9:05 a.m. (The next day…) Fermentation started. Not terribly vigorous, but in my experience 64°F is pretty low. If the yeast seems to peter out before too long, I may raise the temperature and rouse the yeast.
Update: 4/21 8:03 a.m. (Three days later…) Slow fermentation != Weak fermentation. I do not normally ferment this cold, so I guess I should expect it to behave differently than I am used to. Normally — at 67 °F, say — I would expect fermentation to be mostly done by now. Instead, I check it this morning and the trub is swirling like mad, the kreusen has filled the head space and the airlock, and the fermenter is sitting in a puddle of stale beer. I sanitized my blowoff tube and slowly removed the airlock. It hissed like mad for quite a little bit of time. I am guessing it was almost ready to blow. I cleaned it up this morning and it is happily blubbing away in the blowoff bottle.
Update: 5/17 9:25 p.m. (One month later…) Finally bottled. Final Gravity: 1.016 (1.015 @ 68 °F calibrated for 60 °F — refractometer indicates 8.9 Brix or 1.017 SG). The sample jar sample tasted good. Promising. Bottled and moved to storage in the cellar.
What is this fermenter box pictured? you make this yourself?i’m trolling craig list for a cheap freezer or fridge, but the rancos are still about a $100… but still a good investment for lagering.
Yeah, I made it myself with stuff I picked up at Lowes and Home Despot.It’s called “Son of Fermentation Chiller.” Plans here: http://home.roadrunner.com/~brewbeer/chiller/chiller.PDFIf you Google around, there’s a bunch of history around it.It was fun to build.I use that to provide cooling and insulation with a Fermwrap and a Ranco for heating.
morebeer.com is offering a 15% off deal for a ranco this month… I might have to pick one up.Price: $99.00SALE: $84.15 – 15% OFFPROMO CODE: TEMPMAY09B* Offer is good from May 24 – May 31 *http://morebeer.com/view_product/16666//Ranco_Digital_Temperature_Controller_-_Wired
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Chris, I lied. I have a Johnson Controls controller, but they’re *very* similar.