{"id":18,"date":"2011-04-13T15:33:30","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T07:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/?p=18"},"modified":"2011-04-13T15:33:30","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T07:33:30","slug":"brew-3-an-amber-ale-for-kegging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/?p=18","title":{"rendered":"Brew 3: An Amber Ale for kegging"},"content":{"rendered":"
For the third brew we are going with Home Brew Mart\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Amber Ale. \u00c2\u00a0It will also mark our first attempt at kegging, hence a simple recipe. This is also our first outside brew with the new burner (Purchased here<\/a>) and a different location (Beta house). This is going to result in coming up with a slightly different process from before, but since most kegged brews will be brewed at this location, it will be good to have a fresh process. \u00c2\u00a0The cleaning process went well, everything bleached and rinsed, then sanitized with Io-Star. As engineers we both research about beer in our free time and there are some indications that the bleach will eat away at equipment. \u00c2\u00a0It is already visible on the racking tube and its only a matter of time before it is visible on other items. \u00c2\u00a0We are going to start looking for alternative cleaners that are less caustic.<\/p>\n

Recipe from Home Brew Mart: Amber Ale<\/a>
\n8# pale malt extract
\n1# 60L Crystal
\n\u00c2\u00bd# Carapils
\n1 oz. Challenger (7.9%) 60 min
\n1 oz. Challenter 5 min
\nFerment with W.L. California Ale Yeast<\/p>\n

Since nothing ever goes according to plan our recipe is different from the published one. \u00c2\u00a0To start with, we are using Caraform instead of Carapils since HBM was out of Carapils and Caraform would have a similar effect. \u00c2\u00a0We also learned that you need to grind the grains at the store (or at home if you have your own grinder) to crack them and expose their inner goodness. \u00c2\u00a0We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do this last time but will in the future. \u00c2\u00a0They were also out of Challanger hops so we had to select an alternative. \u00c2\u00a0I decided to try to pick his own alternative and compared the properties of Challanger(~7%, mild to moderate and spicy) and made an executive decision to use Santium (5.6%, noble characteristics) instead since I am the super-smart uber brewer and decision maker (Footnote: This is totally not true, I am a total n00b and kind of screwed up a bit on this one, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see how bad later…)<\/p>\n

Our recipe:
\n8# pale malt extract (liquid)
\n1# 60L Crystal
\n\u00c2\u00bd# Caraform
\n1 oz Santium 5.6% 60 min
\n1 oz Santium 5 min
\nFerment with W.L. California Ale Yeast<\/p>\n

Again we are following the basic HBM process. \u00c2\u00a0I \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcexpertly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (read: eyeballed) 3 gallons of water into the pot which was outside on our brand new burner. \u00c2\u00a0We put the steeping grains in our grain bag and let it sit soaking in the water as we brought it up to temperature. \u00c2\u00a0Since we were feeling particularly lazy we found a way to hold the bag off the bottom of the pot so we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to constantly attend it. \u00c2\u00a0In the future we plan on using binder clips to accomplish this. \u00c2\u00a0We monitored the water temperature with the thermometer that came with the burner until it hit about 170. \u00c2\u00a0We then pulled out the grain bag and let the wort come up to a boil. \u00c2\u00a0Once it started boiling we turned off the burner and added our malt extract syrup stirring until it was all dissolved. \u00c2\u00a0We turned the burner back on and brought it back to a boil. \u00c2\u00a0We also got a muslin sock for our hops so we used that this time so we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t clog up our strainer as much. \u00c2\u00a0We measured out 1 oz and put it in once we saw the beginnings of a boil. \u00c2\u00a0We waited 55 minutes (Full disclosure: this time was taken to finish our beers and eat dinner) then added the other 1 oz of hops to the hop bag for the last 5 min of the boil. \u00c2\u00a0Once 60 min hit we turned off the heat, covered the pot and brought it in to sit in the sink with ice and running cool water to help to cool down the beer. \u00c2\u00a0Once the cooling wort stopped steaming through the slight gap we left in the lid, we knew we were good to add it to the fermenter. \u00c2\u00a0We added 1.5 gallons of water to the carboy then strained\/funneled the wort into the carboy. \u00c2\u00a0(Sidenote: it required much less cleaning of the filter screen than last time due to the hop bag. \u00c2\u00a0There were still enough particulates to require a filter cleaning twice in the process but twice for 5 min total was way better than 4-6 times of 5 min apiece.) \u00c2\u00a0We filled the carboy up to just above the 5 gallon mark (we got a little over-zealous on the water pouring), covered the mouth with foil, shook it up, and set it outside to continue cooling down. \u00c2\u00a0We decided that once the colors on the brew temp strip were changing, indicating a temperature in the upper 70s we would pull out a sample for measurements and then pitch the yeast. \u00c2\u00a0We did as such and got the following:
\nInitial Gravity – 1.066
\n8.7%
\n16.5 deg plato<\/p>\n

Once the yeast was pitched and the beer aerated it was transferred to a small trashcan for ease of movement and in case we got spillover. \u00c2\u00a0Since we had a spillover on the last batch we decided to use a blow-off system this time for the first couple days. \u00c2\u00a0We put the racking cane in the rubber stop and the racking tube on the other end. \u00c2\u00a0The tube goes down to a small bucket half full of water. \u00c2\u00a0This should allow for any spillover to be fully contained and not so messy. \u00c2\u00a0I will be checking up on the fermentation and documenting it as best I can with work and everything.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the third brew we are going with Home Brew Mart\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Amber Ale. \u00c2\u00a0It will also mark our first attempt at kegging, hence a simple recipe. This is also our first outside brew with the new burner (Purchased here) and a different location (Beta house). This is going to result in coming up with a … Continue reading Brew 3: An Amber Ale for kegging<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12,6,7],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alcohol","tag-amber-ale","tag-beer","tag-homebrew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kbrtny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}