Brewing Great Beer Part 2: Brewday Decisions

My friend Patrick and I brewed the Rye Pale Ale last weekend. The brewday went pretty well, but for the fact that I was horribly undercaffeinated early in the brewday. I made a "gameday decision" to add what I thought was 2 oz of whole amarillo hops to the flameout addition of the batch. I packed the 2 oz of amarillo into a hop bag with the chinook/columbus blend that Patrick had contributed. Except that I added 4 oz of amarillo, not 2. Later in the day (post coffee), I realized my mistake and decided to drop the 2 oz Cascade flameout hops, since it was already such a big dose of amarillo, columbus, and chinook. I also decided to push the crystal hops to 5 min to see if 5 min hop additions (something I used to use a lot, but haven't tried for quite some time). As a result of the swap, I decided to punch up the bittering addition a bit. And, as the beer became less cascade-centric and amarillo took on a leading role, I decided to add a touch of amarillo to the dry hop mix and to embolden the beer with a larger-than-standard dry hop dose.

The brewday went pretty well. We again had a fairly serious problem with wort being trapped in the mash tun and not draining fully out (this mash tun badly needs to be replaced). But since the recipe was planned with a lower efficiency in mind, we still hit our ideal gravity of 1.051-1.053.

I sprinkled the BRY-97 dry yeast directly onto the wort, as that is what I generally do with US-05 and I wanted to see if I encountered any real problem in doing so. I pitched at 62F and I left the fermentation chamber at 56F, which is ideal for fermenting at 62F. The yeast lagged a bit, and didn't really "take off" until I raised the ambient temperature in the fermentation chamber to 58F (thus promoting a fermentation temperature of 64F). Even still, krausen grew slower and worked slower than US-05 would, even at a much cooler fermentation temperature (I have fermented at 56F without issue on numerous occasions with a similar-gravity beer). This leads me to believe either that Danstar yeasts are much less amenable to being sprinkled directly onto the wort without proper rehydration or that US-05 is much more cold-tolerant than BRY-97.

Time will tell.

Here is the updated recipe:

Brewing Great Beer Part 1: Designing a Great Recipe

The very first step in designing any great beer is determining what kind of beer you want it to be on a very basic level. Rich? Easy-drinking? Simple? Hearty? Robust? Then you decide from there which (if any) of the beer styles best fit what you want to drink.

A while back, my brew-buddy Pat and I decided we wanted something somewhat hoppy and pale to brew next. We knew we wanted something easy and approachable and that we wanted it to be out-of-style slightly. Additionally, Pat wanted to do something with rye malt. What would be hoppy, pale, approachable, and feature rye malt? An extra-hoppy Rye Blonde Ale? A Rye ESB? A Rye Pale Ale? We decided to brew a Rye American Pale Ale. It suited our tastes, and it was the perfect beer to use up my hefty supply of 2011 Cascade hops.

So what is a Rye Pale Ale? There are a few interpretations - you can add some flaked rye or you can feature a rye crystal malt, but the most common way to brew a "Rye" version of a classic style features Rye Malt to augment the flavor and mouthfeel of the base malt. Basically, my take on Rye Pale Ale is an American Pale Ale with some portion of the base malt replaced with rye malt.

Now, this means the base malt will not be 100% pale ale malt, but some portion rye malt, as well. Given my experience brewing different homebrew recipes, like Denny's Conn's famous Wrye Smile IPA, I decided to go for total grist to be about 15% rye malt (meaning rye will be about 20% of the base malt, with an additional 10% specialty grains). That makes the base 5 parts pale ale malt and 1 part rye malt. Trust me, I am good at math.

Now, a little trick to brewing a happy rye beer is using some rice hulls as a portion of the grain bill. Rice hulls will "thin out" the grain bill, helping "sticky" malts like rye and wheat from gumming up the lautering and keeping the wort from running off easily.

The Malt Bill

American pale ales typically have some portion of crystal malt in the gist, contributing a fullness of flavor, a balancing sweetness with some caramel quality, and a richer viscosity (mouthfeel). While this usually means some carapils, a dose of light/medium crystal, and the rest pale ale malt or basic 2-row; I decided to ditch the carapils (a malt that contributes chiefly body with little to no color or sweetness) since the large portion of rye malt will be contributing a great deal of body as is. So the malt bill I settled on was just pale ale malt, a generous dose of carahell (a light German crystal malt), rye malt, and some rice hulls to ease the lautering.

The Hops

The star of most American Pale Ales is the cascade hop. But this is a rye pale ale, so balance is of the utmost importance if I want to make sure the rye malt's flavor still comes through. So instead of stacking bold hops on bold hops, I am combining a generous dose of cascade with the more neutral crystal hops, providing a balanced "hoppy" quality that won't be overly dank or fruity, but will be bold enough to balance the malt. I decided to bitter with a the original super alpha variety (columbus) for its consistency and sharp bittering quality, as well as its citrusy-spicy aromatic qualities.

This is the recipe I came up with:

Recipe: CRye Baby Pale Ale
Style: 10A-American Ale-American Pale Ale

Recipe Overview

Wort Volume Before Boil: 60.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 50.00 l
Volume Transferred: 46.00 l
Water Added: 0.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 46.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 44.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.045 SG
Expected OG: 1.053 SG
Expected FG: 1.010 SG
Expected ABV: 5.8 %
Expected ABW: 4.5 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 39.7
Expected Color: 7.1 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 80.5 %
Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF

Fermentables
US Pale Ale Malt 20lb 0oz (74.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Rye Malt 4lb 0oz (14.8 %) In Mash/Steeped
German CaraHell 2lb 0oz (7.4 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Rice Hulls 1lb 0oz (3.7 %) In Mash/Steeped

Hops
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Whole Hops used First Wort Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 60 Min From End
US Crystal (2.9 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Whole Hops used 10 Min From End
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Whole Hops used At turn off
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 28 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Chinook (10.5 % alpha) 28 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Cascade (5.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Whole Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (12.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped

Yeast: White Labs WLP001-California Ale or similar

Mash at 150 degF for 60 mins

Brewing Up a Storm: 100% Vienna Malt Bitter, Grey Skies Porter Again, Double Red Ale, and American Brown Ale

First I want to make a little pledge: I will make this a better and more complete blog. I do this because the story I want to tell and the perspective I want to give is how homebrewing excellent craft beer is absolutely attainable to an ordinary non-handy person on a budget.

I see plenty of my fellow brewers on the internet advocating sloppy techniques and shortcuts that I don't advocate. For example, I believe extract brewing should be a first step to ease the learning curve, not the core of the hobby. I also encounter plenty of "homebrew porn" detailing beautiful homemade hardware that only a seriously crafty person could build alongside wonderful gadgets that cost an arm and a leg. And I love that some people take the hobby in those directions. My way isn't the only way or the best way, but I make consistently great beer and I do it on a budget. My brewing is a cheap hobby. I actually save money on beer now that I don't need to buy equipment (save for replacing beer line and the occasional bucket or keg piece). That's right: this hobby saved me money in 2012.

So my pledge is to make this a more complete blog. My first post of 2013 will document a recipe formulation, and future posts will take that beer from brain to grain to glass

Now to take this post in the direction it was originally headed: my four most recent brews.

I have been brewing pretty frequently these past two months. My brews have all either been split 10 gal batches or 5 gal batches, so the take-home amount of beer has been somewhat pitiful (especially since this is X-mas present season and I am saving up to pay for a wedding). I have been brewing so often and with such abandon that I have three brews to share in this post. I will describe them in the order I brewed them.

100% Vienna Bitter

My plan with this beer was to find a nice way to brew something small with some fresh Wyeast 1318 slurry I got from Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, OR; while also using up my large supply of Gambrinus Vienna Malt. This seemed like an easy enough task - I would just brew up a 100% Vienna Malt bitter. At around 1.044 and 35 IBUs - something nice and easy to drink to give to my fiancée's family as a christmas gift (though I intend to keep a small amount for myself).

Since I tend not to buy imported hops and because I still have such a large supply of 2011 hops on hand, I opted for a hop profile that featured Glacier hops as well as some US-produced Tettnanger hops (said to resemble English Fuggles more than German Tettnanger). And then I made a last-minute decision to dry hop for a few days with Crystal hops right before bottling.

This is the recipe I went with. I ended up with 5.5 gallons of wort (I usually go for 6 gal).

9lb 12oz Gambrinus Vienna Malt (Canada)

Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Tettnanger 3.0 % 40 g 8.2 Bagged Pellet Hops First Wort Hopped
US Glacier 5.0 % 50 g 26.6 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Tettnanger 3.0 % 30 g 0.0 Bagged Whole Hops At turn off
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 0.0 Bagged Pellet Hops At turn off
US Crystal 2.9 % 25 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops Dry-hop (4 days)

Mash at 152º F for 60 min
OG 1.048 FG ~1.013

Wyeast 1318-London Ale III



Grey Skies Porter Again

This turned out to be the single most unique of any of my modifications to the original recipe. The big change this time was swapping the British pale chocolate malt out for Franco-Belge Kiln-Coffee Malt. The resulting beer is more toasty, coffee-like, and dry-tasting; and less caramel-like, chocolatey, and creamy. It is still a very good beer and I may even submit it into a competition or two, but I personally like the standard version of the recipe better. That's how you hone a recipe, though - you try a change and find out what works and what doesn't.

I brewed this one with my friend Patrick at his grandpa's house. We did a 12 gallon batch and split it. It was a lucky brewday - it rained during the mash (when we didn't need to be outside brewing) and it rained before we started, but we didn't get wet while brewing. And the skies really were gray, too.

The recipe (12 gal):

Great Western Pale Ale Malt 23lb 79.4 %
Belgian Kiln Coffee Malt 2lb 6.9 %
Belgian Caramel Munich Malt 40 2lb 6.9 %
UK Chocolate Malt Crisp 1lb 3.5 %
UK Extra Dark Crystal Crisp 1lb 3.3 %

Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Nugget 10.9 % 70 g 37.5 Bagged Pellet Hops 90 Min From End
US Glacier 5.0 % 40 g 3.3 Bagged Pellet Hops 10 Min From End

Mash at 154º F for 60 min

OG 1.062 FG 1.013

Wyeast 1318-London Ale III



Skeptic Winter IPA

I noticed a trend the last time I was in Portland. So many winter ales these days are essentially darker variations of IPA. So I made one. I decided to use up some malts I had in stock: Special B, CaraFoam, and Golden Naked Oats (a crystal malt made from oats). I hopped it a little less boldly than I usually do an IPA - but there is still plenty of Columbus, Summit, and Amarillo hops to insure a bold hop profile.

Here it is:

US 2-Row Malt 13lb 0oz 83.9 % 3.5 In Mash/Steeped
German CaraFoam 1lb 0oz 6.5 % 0.3 In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Special B 1lb 0oz 6.5 % 22.3 In Mash/Steeped
UK Golden Naked Oats 8.00 oz 3.2 % 0.8 In Mash/Steeped


Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Columbus(Tomahawk) 12.0 % 20 g 21.5 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Summit 15.0 % 40 g 41.3 Bagged Pellet Hops 30 Min From End
US Amarillo 8.0 % 90 g 0.0 Bagged Pellet Hops At turn off
US Amarillo 8.0 % 40 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) 12.0 % 20 g 0.0 Loose Pellet Hops Dry-Hopped

Mash at 152º F for 60 min
OG ~1.068, FG ~1.014

Wyeast 1318-London Ale III



Rodeo Clown Brown

I brewed this one just yesterday. It was adapted from a recipe I developed months ago - the original recipe was going to be more hop-forward and less roasty. I had planned on brewing a dank dark beer - more of a brown IPA, but when it came time to brew the beer, my mood had changed and I wanted a more classic American Brown Ale. So I modified the grain bill to make it more robust (adding brown malt and opting for pale chocolate malt in place of midnight wheat malt). Then I toned down the hop profile, opting instead for a firm and assertive profile built of noble and English-style Northwestern hops (Glacier and Crystal), with the bittering coming from new-school "super alpha" Apollo. For the yeast, I decided to use some Nottingham slurry left over from the brown porter I made last month (erring on the side of overpitching). I pitched at 58º F and fermentation began promptly. At high krausen, I allowed the fermentation temperature to rise to 64º F, and I expect a restrained, but detectable ester profile as a result.

Here is the recipe:

US 2-Row Malt 9lb 0oz
US Flaked Barley 2lb 0oz
UK Dark Crystal 1lb 0oz
UK Brown Malt 1lb 0oz
UK Extra Dark Crystal 8.00 oz
US Rice Hulls 8.00 oz
UK Pale Chocolate Malt 8.00 oz


Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 8.5 Bagged Pellet Hops First Wort Hopped
US Apollo 16.8 % 12 g 19.0 Bagged Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Glacier 5.0 % 30 g 10.9 Bagged Pellet Hops 30 Min From End
US Crystal 2.9 % 60 g 0.0 Bagged Whole Hops At turn off

Yeast
Danstar-Nottingham

Revisiting Your First Homebrew

My very first homebrewed beer was back in the the fall of 2006. My brew-buddy (who long ago gave up the hobby) bought a nut brown ale extract ingredient kit from Oak Barrel Winecraft in Berkeley, CA (I had purchased the brewing equipment for him as a birthday present), and we got to brewing. After 2 weeks in the bucket fermenter and another 2 weeks in the bottle, we had 50 bottles of cloudy, sweet dark brown beer with about a half inch of sediment on the bottom of every bottle. But it tasted all right - more than all right - I was hooked.

Flash forward to the fall of 2012. I have now been brewing for 6 years and I am a pretty advanced-level all-grain brewer who has presented on brewing techniques and beer styles, and who is an active member of 2 different AHA- sanctioned homebrew clubs. I have brewed so many styles several times, and so many recipes have been honed and improved upon over the years. But I never went back and brewed another Nut Brown Ale.

Well, after a few different American-style brown ales came out pretty tasty - and after the malty, English-style brown ales seemingly faded from existence on the shelves of my local beer shops - I decided to brew up another batch of Nut Brown Ale inspired by my first homebrew.

Now that first homebrew was an extract beer, it was very dark brown (chestnut-colored), and it was balanced in favor of the malt. It also had an OG of 1.060 (we followed the advice of the guy working the counter of the LHBS and added a half cup of brown sugar to the boil). I was pretty sure some of the extract was "amber" and I remembered it had chocolate malt and crystal malt, but I wondered whether any other "steeping grains" were included - and what kind of extract did we use? Thankfully, someone on Hopville posted the recipe, although I am nearly certain that when I brewed it, the late hops were East Kent Goldings and were dropped in with 15 minutes left in the boil (not a flameout addition as indicated on the posted recipe). Nonetheless, I think I figured out how to brew this thing right - a lot of crystal malt, some chocolate malt, and some out-of-style "homebrew" flourishes.

I settled on using my ample inventory of Canadian Vienna Malt as the base of this recipe (not too far off from the Munich Malt base of the posted recipe). And on utilizing my beloved British Extra Dark Crystal Malt (120L from Crisp, though I usually use a darker one from Fawcett or Simpson's). And in keeping with the "homebrew flourish" concept, I added a bit of Golden Naked Oats. In lieu of standard chocolate malt, I went with some Crisp Pale Chocolate Malt (which, at 400L is actually darker than standard 350L American chocolate malt from Briess).

For the hop rate, I wanted to avoid anything citrusy or fruity and keep it similar to the 60 min Northern Brewer, 15 min East Kent Goldings recipe I remembered from my original brew. So I decided to use Nugget for bittering (a 60 min addition) and FWH with Glacier. I did add double the Glacier compared with the EKG/Willamette of the original recipe, but there is no way this beer will turn out to be a "hop bomb" by any means, with less than 2 oz of hops in it for a whopping 32 IBU at 1.060.

I mashed at 152 and used Nottingham (the yeast that came with my original kit, though we opted for a single vial of WLP002 with no starter because that was recommended to us by the LHBS. Everything in the brewday went pretty smoothly, aside from running out of propane while I was heating up my mash water (no harm done). I was shooting for 1.055-1.057, but a bump in extract efficiency (I think that Canadian Vienna Malt has a higher extract potential than the US Vienna Malt I used for my calculations), as well as a bit too much evaporation has led me to a situation where my beer will be just a bit bigger than planned (but even closer to my first batch), as I hit 1.060.

I followed the instructions on the yeast packet to rehydrate the yeast properly, then I added it to the fermenter with the wort temperature at 60F. I am shooting for a clean 62F fermentation, and planning on giving this beer 9 days at 62F followed by a few days (maybe a week) at ambient temp, and then a cold crash before I keg it.

Here is a simple un-scientific version of the recipe:

11 lbs Gambrinus Vienna Malt
1 lb Crisp Extra Dark Crystal Malt (120L)
8 oz Simpson's Golden Naked Oats
8 oz Crisp Pale Chocolate Malt (400L)

30g Glacier (5% AA) FWH
20g Nugget (10.9% AA) 60 min

Nottingham Dry Yeast (1 packet)

Mash at 152 for 60 min, no mashout
90 min boil
Ferment ~62F

SRM 26 (Somewhere between a Northern English Brown Ale and a Brown Porter, if you ask me)
IBU 32 (pretty tame for 1.060, but Nugget is a bold bittering hop, so I think it will come across fairly balanced)

Brewing at Mom's

Aside from the 100 qt mash tun that I let at Pat's after the last brewday, I took my entire system to my mom's house, as she has a yard and I do not. In order to be able to brew there sometimes, as brewing in my little apartment just isn't happening. I brewed on this system

last week, and took some pictures this time around. The beer is a black IPA and the recipes will follow the images.








Recipe: Enigma Black IPA
Style: 14B-India Pale Ale(IPA)-American IPA

Recipe Overview

Wort Volume Before Boil: 35.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 27.00 l
Volume Transferred: 23.00 l
Water Added: 0.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 22.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 20.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.047 SG
Expected OG: 1.061 SG
Expected FG: 1.010 SG
Expected ABV: 6.8 %
Expected ABW: 5.3 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 65.6
Expected Color: 32.6 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 83.5 %
Mash Efficiency: 80.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF

Fermentables
US Mystery Malt 11lb 4oz (72.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
US White Wheat Malt 1lb 4oz (8.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
German Carafa Special II 1lb 4oz (8.1 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Munich 10L Malt 1lb 0oz (6.5 %) In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal 12.00 oz (4.8 %) In Mash/Steeped

Hops
US Summit (14.6 % alpha) 15 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 80 Min From End
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Centennial (8.5 % alpha) 100 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Summit (14.6 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 60 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Centennial (8.5 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 30 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped

Other Ingredients

Yeast: DCL US-05 (formerly US-56) SafAle

Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name: No Chosen Schedule

Recipe Notes
Bulk of grain bill was a pre-measured recipe weighing 11 lbs 4 oz. Due to the loss of my previous laptop, I don't know what the recipe was (though I suspect it was a "bulked up" Kölsch or Altbier (without any carafa). 
 
My unusually poor hop harvest left me with too few hops to base a beer around, so these were added to the flameout. There was roughly 1/2 oz dried and it was mostly columbus with a little cascade.

The Carafa Special II was all added to the mash tun after the first runnings had drained, but before my batch sparge. I let that sparge steep for 15 minutes in order to get maximum color from the Carafa. The wort was nearly pitch black. First runnings wort was a medium amber, leading me to believe the "mystery malt" was a Düsseldorf Altbier malt bill.

Brewing a West Coast IPA (or Brewing Somewhere New)

Nine days ago, I brewed beer for the first time in over four months. Since my new apartment isn't a very brewing-friendly place, I co-brewed on my 10 gallon system with a friend at his grandfather's house and split the batch with him. We decided to brew a West Coast IPA because we both still had a ton of 2011 hops left and the new harvest is already picked, so it seemed like time to brew with those 2011 hops.

There were a few hiccups, due in part to my never brewing on that exact system before and in part on the fact that I was a bit rusty. I measured the mash water wrong and also the sparge water because of some fuzzy math and lack of caffeine - let's just call it a case of rusty brewing. So we ended up with a slightly lower efficiency than expected, and we got a more concentrated wort that subsequently needed to be diluted with water.

But everything is fermenting all right and I have managed to keep the fermentation nice and cool. Here's the recipe:

Recipe: New Oakland IPA
Style: 14B-India Pale Ale(IPA)-American IPA

Recipe Overview

Wort Volume Before Boil: 49.00 l
Wort Volume After Boil: 40.00 l
Volume Transferred: 36.00 l
Water Added: 2.00 l
Volume At Pitching: 38.00 l
Final Batch Volume: 36.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.055 SG
Expected OG: 1.064 SG
Expected FG: 1.013 SG
Expected ABV: 6.9 %
Expected ABW: 5.4 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth): 75.1
Expected Color: 7.0 SRM
Apparent Attenuation: 79.6 %
Mash Efficiency: 71.0 %
Boil Duration: 90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF

Fermentables
US 2-Row Malt 22lb 0oz (80.0 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Vienna Malt 4lb 0oz (14.5 %) In Mash/Steeped
US Carapils Malt 1lb 0oz (3.6 %) In Mash/Steeped
Belgian Caramel Munich Malt 60 8.00 oz (1.8 %) In Mash/Steeped

Hops
US Magnum (9.5 % alpha) 30 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 90 Min From End
US Columbus(Tomahawk) (9.0 % alpha) 70 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 30 Min From End
US Amarillo (8.0 % alpha) 100 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Simcoe (10.0 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Citra (10.0 % alpha) 50 g Bagged Pellet Hops used 10 Min From End
US Simcoe (10.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Citra (10.0 % alpha) 120 g Bagged Pellet Hops used At turn off
US Amarillo (8.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Simcoe (13.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped
US Citra (12.0 % alpha) 60 g Loose Pellet Hops used Dry-Hopped

Other Ingredients
Whirlfloc Tablet 2 g used In Boil
Yeast Nutrient 2 g used In Boil

Yeast: White Labs WLP001-California Ale

Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name:IPA-Pale-ESB
Step: Rest at 150 degF for 60 mins

Brewing After Not Brewing for 3 Months

So I haven't brewed since June - crazy. And my new apartment has no outdoor space, so I am having to move my brewery elsewhere. I decided on my mom's house, though it is very far away, on account of that she will let me brew there and not hassle me about when or how often I do brew there. And MY LAPTOP WAS STOLEN! It was insured, so I got a shiny new laptop, but I lost DOZENS of homebrew recipes and I now have to buy a new copy of Beer Alchemy! Balls.

Anyway, a lot of non-brewing stuff has taken my attention. I swore into the State Bar of California, I opened my own law office, and I built a website for that law office, which you can go to by clicking on these links or just going to SchuylerCampbell.com.

But I still have a lot of 2011 crop hops left, so I am planning on doing 2 10-gallon batches of IPA in the near future - one Black and one Regular (possibly even a re-do of my Old School IPA - though the recipe is lost). We'll see. I miss having beer on tap.