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.