So next up is another LBBP Original! This recipe is formulated to be an American Pale Ale that will clock in with about 30-31 IBU and yield an ABV of about 5.2%. The simple grain bill and single hop usage was compiled with the hopes of creating an easy to replicate house ale (if all goes well and it tastes good!).
~UPDATE: I wrote the previous paragraph BEFORE starting my brew day...some things changed. I'll get to it later, but the revised IBU is about 28, and anticipated ABV is 6.1%!
There will be a few more "LBBP Firsts" with this brew as well. This one will be 100% grains (no extracts at all), a hydrometer will be used to determine how effecient my brewing procedures are on the stove top, I am using a immersion wort chiller that was custom made for me (shout out of thanks to Kenny!) that should get the wort from boiling to pitching temperature in 15 minutes, and finally (thanks for the wonderful Christmas gift from my in-laws!) the final product will be bottled in regular 12 oz. glass bottles and capped using a hand-capper. So that should be fun to play with in a few weeks :-)
Alley Cat Ale - brewed on 1/22/2011 - 3.5 pounds of Briess 2-Row - 12 oz. Weyermann Vienna - 8 oz. Briess Caramel 10 - 1 oz. (split between 60, 20, 7 boil times) Cascade hop pellets 5.9% AA - 1/2 pack of Nottingham yeast
Heat 6.25 quarts of water to 170° (preheat oven to 170° as well) and then slowly mix in all of the grains. Temperature ended up around 152-153° after all grain was added. I hit the pot with some more heat to get it up to 155°, then put the lid on and placed it into the warm oven. Let sit and mash for 60 minutes, stirring periodically (every 15-20 minutes) and adding a little stove top heat to keep the mash temps near where they started. So that process went well.
I then used 1.5 liters in a separate pot to "sparge", and I did this four times with hopes of getting nice extraction from the grains. Then got the wort to a boil and used the Cascades pellets in .6, .25, and .15 ounce increments at 60, 20, 7 minutes respectively.
I then got to play around and use my brandy new immersion chiller and cooled the wort to 69 degrees in about 12 minutes (YAY!). I must give a big shout out to KNeace from MBFans for building this chiller custom for me. I was awesome, and thank you so much!
I filled the LBK, and I was falling too short of the the 8.5 liter mark (errr...) so I then decide to use my new hydrometer to take a specific gravity reading to see what OG I am working with and see how much (if any) I can top off with water from here...
1.070
wait that can't be right...
1.070
so I filled up to the "quart" marking...
1.060
So factor in the water temp adjustment to this reading (being at about 70°) and I am at 1.061...wow. unless I am doing something really wrong here, and since I am using 1/2 pack of Notty and my calculator on brewmasterswarehouse.com is projecting a FG at 1.015 and an ABV of 6.1%.
Again, unless I am wrong here, my efficiency is well over 80% (more like 83ish). Wow. I rule :-) However, there is a chance that I "over extracted" the grains which might lead to off flavors (maybe I don't rule). Only time will tell now. The Nottingham yeast was rehydrated and pitched at 70°. After a day, it is bubbling away around 69° (so I will try to drop it more towards 66°) and we will see what happens.
~UPDATE: 1/24/11 after writing the above statement I was out of the house for about 7 hours, and in that time frame the temperature spiked up to 75°!!! Oh crud. I moved the keg into a cooler spot, and it dropped back down to about 68° over the course of 8 hours or so. Now comes the fun part of trying to get it down another few degrees and keep it there for a few more days while primary fermentation completes. Fortunately this yeast strain works fast, and typically finishes within 4-5 days. Cross your fingers.
~UPDATE: 1/25/11 the keg has been sitting steadily at 65-66° for the past 20 hours, and there is still some visable bubbling action.
~UPDATE: 2/3/11 due to the wicked cold here in Bucks Co. we have had the furnace going strong for week and a half. While this is bad for our utility bill, it is excellent for temperature regulation of the LBK ;-) The result was a steady 63-64° fermentation temperature...which should be very nice for this beer. Looking forward to a QC sample during bottling! {FYI: it was a great!}
- Ferment through 2/5/2011 - Bottle and carbonate through 2/19/2011 - First Tester on 3/4/2011 ~ first sample notes: the beer poured a hazy gold with a full two fingers of pillowy bright white head (that lingered for several minutes before settling into a thin head that lasted the rest of the way and left some moderate lacing). There was a pleasant citrus and slightly floral nose. The tasted followed accordingly with a mild grapefruit and bit of orange peel at first that finished slightly dry with a hint of malt sweetness. For being over 6% ABV...it certainly doesn't drink like a strong beer (as in: watch out!). Although it is still young, Alley Cat is really a nice beer (my wife actually liked it too) that I can only imagine will get better in the coming weeks. Time to get a few more bottles into the fridge! ~next recipe~