| By Tim Snider on Sep 24th 2003, 4:27 am | Permalink |
| Just cracked open one of my first all grain pale ales. It's been conditioning for eight days and the carbonation level was perfect- nice fluffy head, pleasant fizz on my tongue. I had racked this beer to secondary for one week and the results were very evident. I could read a newspaper through it. The color was just what I wanted out of going all grain- a beautiful pale gold! It certainly had a bit of kick to it. I used Wyeast Northwest Ale. My O.G. was 1.058. The slacker yeast took two weeks to fully attenuate. My F.G. was 1.008! Man, was it yummy! I've got an amber ale in secondary now. I reused the Northwest Ale in it as well. I'll probably bottle this Sunday. Kampai! | |
| By Tim Snider on Sep 7th 2003, 4:35 am | Permalink |
| I just finished my second all grain batch today, an amber ale. According to the Tastybrew calculator I got an 80% efficiency. I wondered why sparging was taking so long. Apparently I'm doing things right. I reused the yeast from the pale ale I brewed 2 weeks ago, and it's was bubbling the airlock 1 hour after pitching. I'll let you know how they both turn out. | |
| By Tim Snider on Aug 25th 2003, 4:30 am | Permalink |
| Well, I brewed my first all grain batch today. I've read 7 books on homebrewing so I thought I could handle anything. The mash went fine. I got complete conversion in one hour. Then I went to open the valve to recirculate the runnings. Imagine my shock when I opened the valve and nothing came out. The plastic false bottom I use must have floated, allowing grains into the filter system. I didn't panic, that would have taken effort. I could do nothing at first but stand there open-mouthed and question the existence of God. Eventually I recovered. I dumped the mash into my kettle, cleaned out the false bottom, then poured the mash back into the tun. From there things went swimmingly, thanks to the stainless steel bar which my lovely wife used to hold the false bottom in place. I lautered and sparged for about one hour and collected 6.5 gallons of wort. The boil went well. I used a pedestal fan to get a good hot break without boiling over. The new wort chiller I build also worked well, cooling the five gallons in about 20 minutes. And check this out, talk about beginner's luck; I calculated my efficiency at 74%. I'm hoping to improve my techniques over time. I'll post later and let you know how the batch came out. Peace. | |
| By Tim Snider on Aug 23rd 2003, 3:07 pm | Permalink |
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This is my first journal entry, so here goes. Tomorrow I'm taking the plunge and brewing my first all grain beer- Little Si Pale Ale. The recipe is as follows: 5 Gallon batch: 9 lbs. 2 Row Pale Malt 1 lb. 40L Crystal 8 oz. Cara-pils 4 oz. Wheat Malt Infusion mash at 152 for 60 minutes. 1 oz. Willamette hops and 1 teaspoon gypsum at boil 1 oz. Willamette hops and 1 teaspoon Irish Moss at 45 minutes 1 oz. Tettnanger hops at 55 minutes Cool, aerate and pitch Wyeast #1332 Wish me luck! I'll let you know how everything turns out. |
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