Claremont IPA

At long last, it's here. . .the first brewing session of the season! I'm happy to be brewing with Dr. Brian, who lives just up the street and has been wanting to get back into the home brew thing. We're working at his place for this first batch - my apartment is just a touch too warm during the day still, and he has a nice cool basement.

I've been wanting to do an honest IPA for some time now. . .last year's Kamikaze Pale Ale was good, but lacked that level of in-your-face hoppiness that I crave. So, it's time for another concoction. This one I call Claremont IPA.

Ingredients for "Claremont IPA"

• 0.5 lb. carapils malt
• 6 lbs. dry American light malt extract
  
• 2 oz. Centennial hops (pellet form; 8% aa)
• 1 oz. Cascade hops (whole)
  
• 11 g active dry Nottingham brewing yeast (Danstar brand)

Steps

• I heated 2.5 gallons of tap water to 158 degrees Fahrenheit, and steeped the carapils malt (in a nylon bag) for 25 minutes
• I gently rinsed the carapils milt in warm (~158 degree) tap water, to bring the total volume up to 3 gallons
• Then, I heated the water to boiling and added the dry malt extract and 2 oz. of the Centennial hops.
• After another 55 minutes of boiling, I added 1 oz. of Centennial hops
• After 5 minutes of boiling, I removed the wort from the heat and chilled it down to 70 degrees.
• After putting the wort in the primary fermenter and topping it up to around 4.5 gallons with pre-boiled, chilled water, I pitched the yeast.
• On measuring the specific gravity, I noticed it was quite low - only 1.025! This is probably because I had left a quantity in the pot with the worst of the accumulated solids. Apparently, just a little too much! So, I boiled up 1.5 lbs amber dry malt in 1 gallon of water for five minutes, chilled it in ice, and then added it to the fermenter. This resulted in an original gravity of 1.066 (8.5 percent potential alcohol).

Upcoming Plans

• After one week, I'm going to transfer to a secondary fermenter and add 1 oz. of Cascade hops, for some dry-hopping action.
• Then, I'll probably let it condition for another two or three weeks before bottling.
  

Ingredients Cost Summary
A half pound of carapils malt costs $1; the malt extract (including shipping) cost around $32. The Centennial hops cost $8.75 for two ounces, and it was $1.50 for the yeast. The rest of the hops were "free" from South Dakota, so we have a total materials cost of $43.25. Assuming a typical yield, we're looking at around $1/bottle. The real killer right now is getting the dry malt extract. . .unfortunately, my closest home brew shop (which I otherwise love) doesn't carry the light stuff.

Getting Ready to Brew Again

Temperatures are cooling. . .homebrew supply is perilously low. Time to start brewing again!

California Summer Ale Bottled

This afternoon I (with the assistance of my buddy Matt) bottled up the California Summer Ale - the final yield was 41 bottles. Three of these were 22-oz., and 11 were 18-oz. So, that's a lot of beer! The brew has a nice hoppy taste and a golden-copper color. Can't wait to see how it turns out after a few weeks of carbonation and conditioning!

This will likely be my last batch until next fall - the daytime temperatures in my apartment are just a little too warm now. Fortunately, I've got a nice supply of home brew laid away in my closet.

California Summer Ale Update

Tonight I transferred the CSA into the secondary fermenter. The beer has a nice light color, but is nowhere near settled yet. I've read that this strain of yeast has low floculation, so we'll just have to see how the end result looks in terms of clarity.

Right now, the gravity reads 1.010. Slightly lower than I was expecting, so I double-checked the temperature and my measurements, and all is correct. This gives me about 3.3 percent alcohol at present.

The taste of the beer so far is light and mildly hopped. It promises to be very good in the end!

California Summer Ale

As the winter brew season winds down, I've decided to brew one or two batches of something lighter in color and flavor. So, I poked around on the internet to find a recipe that I could adapt for ingredients on hand as well as those available at the local home brew store (which I'm finding has a pretty decent and reasonably-priced supply of most of the basics). Here's what I came up with!

Ingredients for "California Summer Ale"

• 1 lb. carapils malt
• 5 lbs. light dried malt extract (American brand)
• 1.5 oz. whole Saaz hops (bittering)
• 0.5 oz. whole Saaz hops (aroma)
• 4.25 fl. oz. Wyeast American ale yeast 1056 (activator pack)
  

Steps

1. I heated two and a half gallons of tap water to 158 degrees Fahrenheit, and steeped the carapils malt (in a nylon bag) for 25 minutes.
2. I rinsed the malt with warm tap water (also approximately at 158 degrees), to bring the volume up to three gallons.
   
3. Then, I heated the water to boiling and added the dried malt extract as well as the bittering hops. These were boiled for 58 minutes.
4. For the final two minutes of the boil, I added the aroma hops.
5. I stuck the whole pot in a sink of ice water, and let it cool down a fair bit. Once it was cool, I decanted the wort into my primary fermenter, and topped it up to five gallons with cold distilled water.
6. Then, I pitched the yeast. I activated the pack yesterday afternoon, and found that it swelled up much more quickly than I was expecting! We'll see how it does today. I can't imagine there is any harm from just sitting overnight.
7. The initial gravity is 1.042. This is a potential alcohol of 5.2 percent or so, but given my usual yield I would predict it will end up being about 3.5 -4 percent in the end.
   

Ingredients Cost Summary
The light malt extract was $4/lb, for a total cost of $20. The hops were free, the yeast cost $7 for the package, and the carapils malt was $2 for a 1 lb. package. Adding in $2 for the water, and another $2 or so for the ice used to cool this down, I spent approximately $33 on ingredients for this batch. Assuming I'll get around 48 bottles from this batch, that works out to ~69 cents of ingredients per bottle. Of course, this doesn't factor in the equipment costs (which probably about doubles things after five batches of beer), but it's still a pretty good price (under $5 per six-pack!) for what I hope will be good beer.

Other tidbits
For this brew session, I made the leap to purchase a few nylon bags for grain steeping and hops boiling. This is the best brewing investment I've made so date! It's way easier than cheesecloth, ridiculously reusable, and will definitely be cheaper in the long run.

All-American Porter Brewed and Bottled

I brewed up the All-American Porter exactly as outlined in a previous last post. I steeped the grains for around 45 minutes, and gently rinsed them with warm water. In an effort to keep the gravity up, I only filled the primary fermenter to just under 4.5 gallons. Initial gravity was 1.051--the highest of any I've brewed to date. I let it ferment in the primary for a week, and then transferred it to the secondary fermenter, where it's been aging and settling for the last three weeks. The final gravity was 1.014, giving an alcohol content of approximately 5 percent. Definitely the strongest I've ever brewed!

This afternoon I bottled it up, with a yield of 42 12-oz. bottles. I was a little worried about the flavor initially, because the wort was pretty bitter. But, the flavor has mellowed out really, really nicely in the intervening weeks. I daresay this may be the best I've brewed so far--we'll have to see how it all carbonates up!

Wheat Beer Bottled and Drinkable

Ok, so it's been a long time since the last post. The All-American Porter has been brewed and will get bottled later today. Also, the wheat beer got bottled two weeks ago--we ended up with 41 bottles, if I remember correctly. Some of these were the larger pint-sized bottles, too. I cracked the first bottle earlier this week, and it has carbonated up nicely. It's pretty drinkable, although in hindsight the normal fruity aroma associated with the German wheat beers is not quite to my taste. A little slice of lemon really rounds out the flavor, though. Next time, I think I'll try an American strain of yeast--these seem to lack the fruity aroma/flavors seen in many of the European strains.