Last Friday marked the start of a new beginning for me in the brewing world. If you followed my last post you would know that I haven’t brewed in quite a while because of my lack of space. Some of you may say that there is always ample room, heck the guy at the homebrew store told me he brewed 5 gallon batches in a fox hole while he was in Vietnam…So I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Regardless, the room I have isn’t sufficient to brew the way I like to brew. So I’ve been doing some research and decided to give brewing 1 gallon batches a try. I feel there are two major bonuses to this. I can really test and try ingredients, in small amounts to see what they are really like, and it allos me to do all grain batches to begin preparing myself that eventual all grain cross over.

Small Amounts = More Knowledge

If your like me you desire superior knowledge in everything you do. You want to be the best and you won’t stop until you are. One reason I’m excited to get on board with these one gallon batches is it limits the ingredients that I can use. Typically, I use 1 to 3 grains and 1 kind of hops. This will, hopefully, allow me to really zero in on specific characteristics of certain ingredients.

Going All Grain…Kinda

When brewing one gallon of beer I can finally go all grain because I’m using between 2 and 3 pounds of grain, which fits very well in my 4 gallon pot. This is a great baby step towards the extra time and processes that are incurred when you decide to go all grain. Plus, I hear it makes better beer than extracts, even though I’ve had some tasty extracts…

Enough about that though. Let’s talk about my batch.

Here is the recipe.

Mike’s NW Pale Ale

Malts:

2 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt

.25 lbs 2 Row Caramel Malt 60L

Hops:

All Centennial (Its going to be a little hoppy for the style, but its the Pacific Northwest and I could only by 2 oz at a time.)

.25 oz First Wort Hopping

.15 oz (60 min)

.25 oz (10 min)

.35 oz (1 min)

.25 oz (Flame Out)

.75 oz (Dry Hop 1 Week)

Yeast:

Safale US-05 (Half packet)

Directions:

Bring 144 oz of water up to 150 – 155 degrees and drop your grain in to start the mash. I lost 10 to 12 degrees when I dropped mine in. So I’ll adjust for that next time. After and hour, pull the bag out and into a strainer over the wort and pour 112 oz of 170 to 180 degree water over the top to rinse the grain and finalize conversions. Be sure to do your best to pour slowly and not splash any wort at this point. Hot side aeration is bad!!!

Boil for 60 minutes adding hops along the way.

Cool down as fast as you can. I just put a lid on mine and put in the freezer for 120 minutes. Not ideal, but my sink leaks water and a wort chiller is not a possibility.

Rehydrate and pitch yeast. Ferment the hell out of it.

A Couple of Notes:

1. The go into the first time trying this with an open mind and know it isn’t going to be perfect. I have about 4 things I need to pay attention to next time.

2. One gallon batches prove to have their own challenges. However, cleaning and working with 1 gallon is much easier than 5.

3. It isn’t that expensive to do this. Cost me just under $60 to get the 2, one gallon glass jugs and enough class to bottle 1 gallon, along with grain bags, ingredients and a new mini auto siphon.

4. It takes just as much time to do 1 gallon as it does 5…heck as long as it does to do 7 barrels with the right equipment.

5. Learn your gear. I started with 1.6 gallons and I still ended up topping off my jug with 6 cups of water. I’ll start with 2 gallons next time. I’ve go my boil off somewhat calculated now.

To make a long story short. I’m very excited about this. I’m going to ripping up some 1 gallon batches for a while to learn my ingredients better and to hopefully develop some new, personal, recipes that I really like and can share with you. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Has anyone else done any experiments lately or brewed up one gallon batches?

Cheers!

I know I’ve been focusing more on sharing first time homebrewing stories with everyone in hopes of inspiring those people that aren’t doing it yet to do it, and those of you that haven’t in a while to get to it!

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Beer Tools. For those of you unfamiliar with what Beer Tools is, it’s software that assists pro brewers and home brewers a like to design recipes. I haven’t dug to far into it, but I can tell you that any serious homebrewer needs to get this. It has a lot of features, recipes and information that can take your homebrewing recipes and organization up to the next level. Plus, its a modest $30, so well worth it in my opinion.

Sometime in the future, I’ll see if I can get a screen capture software and dig into it with you so you can see it. Until then, why don’t you just grab a free trial?

Anyway, so with this new tool I decided to finally take a stab at making my own brew recipe. Check out the video to see what’s up. I’ll post the recipe below.

Overall, I think it turned out decent. Many things could be better and one of them is getting myself some space to get a fermentation fridge. I can’t control my temperature in my space without it and I’m pretty sure it would take my taste up to a new level.

Download Mike’s Porter Recipe

This weekend I brewed up my first batch of beer in a few months. With the move, limited space and lack of cash, I’ve had to hold off on brewing. However, the New Year brings new hope! So I brewed up a batch. Instead of writing about it to much, I made a video diary of the brew day for you. Check it out to get an idea of what brew day was like. I had some ups and downs. The main problem I had was the fact that I didn’t remember that my wort chiller has no tubes on it, so it was worthless. On top of that, I found out my sink doesn’t put out cold water, just warm and hot. So my ice bath melted right of way. I ended up covering it up and putting it in the fridge for 5 hours. All in all, I think its going to be ok. Fermentation started within 12 hours.

Aside from this being my first batch in Portland, it was the first batch I made with a custom recipe. Jesse, a reader of MBR gave me a porter recipe through Facebook. Also, this last week, Beer Tools hooked me up with a free copy of their software to check out. So I took the recipe into Beer Tools and made a few alterations and additions. I’ve got a Baltic Porter by style, but I decided to add in some Nestle Cocoa. I’ve never used Cocoa in homebrewing so this should be interesting. I did some research and decided to put 10 TBSP, in 5 gallons. The wort was a bit sweet, but I’m hoping my other ingredients will come together and meld it out and all I get is some chocolate. I’ll keep you up to date on that. It was an experiment and one of the best ways to learn right?

Here is the recipe. If it turns out good, I’ll edit it and get a link together for you guys to download if you want. Otherwise, check out the video to see more detail about the brew day.

Mike’s Porter (Working Title LOL)

Speciality Grains:

8 oz Domestic Black Patent Malt

8 oz North American Crystal Malt 60 L

8 oz Chocolate Malt

Fermentables

7 lbs Amber LME

1 lbs Light DME

Hops

1 oz Fuggle 4.0 AA (60 min)

.5 oz Willamette 7.6 AA (30 min)

.5 oz Willamette 7.6 AA (10 min)

1 oz Willamette 7.6 AA (5 min)

Yeast

Safale US-05

Adjuncts

10 Tbsp Nestle Unsweetened Cocoa (30 min)

Directions

The usual. Steeped at 155 degrees or so for 20 minutes, then added in all my fermentables. Bring up to a boil and add the hops after the hot break. Add the hops during the schedule above. Tossed in 10 Tbsp of Cocoa at 30 minutes into the boil. Cooled it down to 70 ish degrees and pitch my yeast.

I hate to admit it, but it has been 2 months since the last brew. A lot has been going on and I just fell off the wagon for a few. However, my stash is diminishing quickly, especially since my Extra Pale Ale has come to be one of the best tasting beers I’ve ever made. I find myself drinking more of it than I should, nightly…

So Sunday brought another brew day. I decided, since I was enjoying my Extra Pale Ale, I would give the Northern Brewer English Pale Ale extract kit a try. In true British fashion the main difference in this beer versus the American counterpart is the hops being used. Kent Goldings hops, native to Kent, England, were used in this recipe and they have a spiciness to their aroma that has me very curious about the final product.

Homebrewing

Today was about as easy going and relaxing as it gets with homebrewing. It makes me wonder why more people don’t partake in this fine hobby. I was able to clean bottles, drink beer and watch soccer while I brewed up the Northern Brewer English Pale Ale extract kit. The extract kit was pretty run of the mill with its processes so I decided to do a couple of things differently than normal. With a Pale Ale such as this, a variety of yeast isn’t really needed. Normally I am a huge advocate of the wYeast smack packs. They are easy to use and rarely fail me. With a pale ale like this though there isn’t a lot of flavor and aroma that I’m looking for from the yeast so I decided to save a few bucks and give the Nottingham dry yeast a go. I rehydrated the yeast and pitched it into my wort.

With it being summer outside now the temperature really fluctuates inside of our house. I determined that underneath my steps would be a great place to ferment as it only moves up and down a few degrees during the day. However, I still wanted to maintain a better temperature shift than that. So I created a swamp cooler to use which is maintaining the fermentation temperature at 62 degrees F. I’m expecting a fine, crisp tasting pale ale.

Other than these two items, everything else fell right into place. I hit my OG smack on and fermentation started in about 8 hours. In a couple, 3 weeks I will have myself another set of tasty Pale Ales to enjoy before the rest of the summer dwindles away.

Commercial Examples of English Pale Ale’s: Bass Pale Ale, Boddington’s Pub Ale, 8th Street Ale

Brew Day Journal Stats

I adjusted the recipe just a hair by adding in all 6 lbs of the LME at the end. My wife likes a more bitter beer so I thought I would try and get a little more hop utilization and try to maintain a golden color by adding the LME late.

Specialty Grain

.5 lbs Simpsons Crystal

Fermentables

6 lbs Gold LME (Flame Out)

1 lbs Golden Light DME (60 min)

Hops

2 oz East Kent Goldings (60 min)

1 oz East Kent Goldings (1 min)

Yeast

1 package Nottingham Dry Yeast

Notes

O.G. 1.050 | F.G. 1.012 | ABV: 5.0%

Brewed: 6/27/10
Racked:
Bottled: 7/11/10

Today’s brew day taught me two very important lessons that I will never forget or take for granted again. Aside from making a very large mess all over my house, including the driveway, it was a very productive day, yielding me 54 more soldiers to drink and a bubbling fermenter with an Imperial Stout from Northern Brewer in it within 3 hours of racking the wort into the fermenter.

First things first, I had to bottle my Scottish 60 Schilling from Northern Brewer as well. Since both brews use the Scottish Ale yeast, I decided to reuse the yeast cake again since it worked the last time with the EPA. The first part of the day provided me with another 2 cases of beer to drink. But more importantly, a healthy amount of yeast to reuse on a big beer. It looked like a tornado went through our kitchen when I was done. I had cleaned bottles the night before so all my dishes were out and I had bottles every where. Add my bottling equipment on top of that and it was nothing short of pig sty.

On to the homebrew lessons I learned today.

The first thing I learned today is that no matter how much you know about homebrewing and how many times you’ve brewed, there is always a learning curve when you brew in a different environment. I really enjoyed brewing outside, but I found myself scrambling a couple of times because I had forgotten something or I was using water from the faucet on the side of the house instead of the sink.

The second and more important lesson I learned is to never, and I mean NEVER pitch in 2 ounces of hops at the end of a boil in a vigorous, “Here are your hops, you boiling pot” fashion. I tossed my hops in quickly and at the same time and my wort spit them back at me and onto my driveway. I knew there was going to be kick back, but I didn’t expect it to literally explode like the old volcano experiments in elementary school did. Needless to say I was pissed, but another homebrewing lesson learned I suppose.

Have you learned any hard lessons in your homebrewing adventures?

Brew Day Journal Stats

Specialty Grain

.5 lbs Simpsons Roasted Barley

.5 lbs Simpsons Black Malt

.5 lbs Simpsons Chocolate

Fermentables

6 lbs Dark LME (60 min)

6 lbs Dark LME (15 min)

Hops

2 oz Summit (60 min)

2 oz Cascade (15 min)

Yeast

Reused Cake from Wyeast Scottish Ale 1728

Notes

O.G. 1.076 | F.G.  | ABV:

Brewed: 4/18/10
Racked: 5/9/10
Bottled:

Review to come!

The Traveling Wortbury’s, the group I brew a bit of beer with, gathered this past weekend for some beer, food, brewing and good ole hang out time. We usually brew at Jay’s house, but today we were over at Marty’s where we decided with it finally becoming spring time, we would brew right outside of the garage. Needless to say, it was a great time talking beer, drinking beer and homebrewing beer!

I decided to brew up Northern Brewer’s Scottish 60 extract kit. I did a little bit of research and found that this beer uses the same yeast as Northern Brewers Imperial Stout. So I decided that I was going to use the Scottish 60 to propagate some yeast for a big beer. I plan to pitch right on top of the old cake after I rake this Scottish 60. I haven’t gotten into figuring out exactly how much yeast I should pitch yet, but my thoughts are a big 1.086 OG on the Imperial Stout could benefit from the massive amounts of yeast that will be waiting for another brew in a week. Now you know the plan, how did the day go?

Homebrewing Northern Brewer Scottish 60

It was pretty uneventful as far as brewing was concerned. My recipe was really basic. Some water, some LME, some DME and very little hops. Everything went really well for me. I had no boil overs. I hit my times perfectly and the hot toddies were yummy.

One thing that I did do differently today that I normally don’t do, was using a Wort Chiller. I have yet to buy one of these, but its on the list. Jay brought his wort chiller and since we were outside it was really easy to hook it up to a hose and use it. As soon as my boil was over I poured my hot wort into a bucket. On top of that I poured in about 3.25 gallons of cool water, probably about 50 degrees. My temperature was immediately below 100 degrees. I hooked up the Wort Chiller and in less than 8 minutes I was down to pitching temperatures. That is a new record for me.

I pitched my yeast and I was done.

The real highlight of the day was Jay’s “maple beer.” Being the experimental type of person Jay is, he tapped some maple trees and brought some 12 gallons of maple tree sap to brew. Using that as his water, he mixed in his DME and hops making one of the lightest colored beers I’ve seen come out of homebrew. It will be interesting to see what it tastes like. If it tastes good, Jay will be happy. I’m more of a style type of person but I’m not 100% sure where to put this one. At first I was thinking a light colored Marzen, but it is just so unique with the amounts of fermentables and hops, that I just can’t classify it.

If anyone has any ideas of what you would classify it as, that would be great. I know Jay doesn’t care as long as its good, but I’d love to have a place to put it, but that’s just me!

Brew Day Journal Stats

Specialty Grain

.5 lbs Briess Caramel Pils

Fermentables

3.15 lbs Amber LME

1 lbs Dark DME

Hops

.5 oz Northern Brewer (60 min)

Yeast

Wyeast Scottish Ale 1728

Notes

O.G. 1.032 | F.G.: 1.011 | ABV: 2.8%

Brewed: 3/27/10
Racked:
Bottled: 4/18/10

Review to come!