Today was the day to fire up the Monster Brew Sculpture from More Beer. I have been brewing with the same basic steps but without a structure to hold the pots. Now with the new Monster I have three burners which should lead to a more efficient brew day. I started with rousting up a yeast slurry that I collected from a batch bottled up a couple of weeks ago. Re-pitching yeast is one of the greatest things that I know of in order to make great beer.

I split the slurry into two 1000 ml Erlenmeyer flasks with a bit of fresh wort in them. After a couple hours on some new wort to roust the yeast the little buggers took off like a ….. bat out of hell? Yes, it took off too quick so I had to let it sit and add additional fresh wort to the yeast two hours before I planned to pitch it to the new batch. Now that it is sitting on the beer in the carboy’s they are very happy.

My plan for the day was to brew up a somewhat simple American Pale Ale recipe from “Brewing Classic Styles” by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer of Brew Strong fame.  On the new system plans don’t always go the way it use to.  Maybe that’s the point of keeping it simple ….. trying to get an expected result.  Well, it did not go perfectly and that is what I expected.

The Mash was perfect holding 152 degrees with a recirculation through the Hot Liquor tank heat exchanger.  The Sparge was a little long at 90 minutes.  I have been using a refractometer to check “the numbers” during the brewing process.  Calibration of the instrument was the first thing I did this morning with distilled water.  The Brix scale number that the Refractometer reading gave me after 30 minutes of boiling was 16 which equates out to about 1.066 on the hydrometer.  My target was more like 1.050 after 30 minutes of boiling so I knew I was heading into IPA territory.  No problem just add more hops, right?  My American Pale Ale had turned into a bigger beer.  Most likely the 90 minute Sparge and the fine crush of the grain was at fault.  Next time I will take this into consideration.  More later.

Bottling Day at the Yeast Ranch today.  Last Sunday Wolfie and I brewed up what was supposed to be an ESB (English Extra Special Bitter).  Well I messed up the recipe again.  This time cold stone sober too.  Not that one beer during a brew day is going to mess things up, its just that I had my mind wrapped around a 6 gallon batch when I was doing a 12 gal thing.

Actually, the mess up happened the day before when I went to the grain store – More Beer in Riverside – the happiest place in the whole world, just like Disneyland!  I won’t describe to whole messed up event but its just a matter of doubling the specialty malts for the recipe.  Its like the story when God was handing out Legs and she thought he said KEGS and replied, “I’ll take two fat ones.”  I was looking at the recipe thinking it was for 6 gal and doubled the specialty malts because we were brewing up a 12 gal batch.  What was intended to be an ESB turned out to be an American Amber Ale.  So no worries – I just adjusted to hopping rate and changed the yeast and bingo we are back in the style guidelines.  Its just a different beer.

The bottles are sterilizing in the dishwasher and the coffee is perking in the pot so its off to bottling time this afternoon.  Here is the recipe for 12 gal. batch of an American Amber Ale:

Malt Bill: includes 24 lb English Pale Malt; 2 lb C-15; 1 lb C-120

Hops: Magnum 1 oz. 60 min boil then East Kent Goldings 2 oz at 10 min and 2 oz at flame out. (This is on the fly changes OK because I messed up the grain bill remember).

Mash at 152 for an hour and Sparge at 170 degree to a total of 14.5 gal.  Boil for an hour adding yeast nutrient and bingo its wort.

OG is 1.062 high than expected by a couple of points but whose counting?

FG is 1.012  pretty attenuated.

Tasty now before carbonation so we will see in a month how it came out.