Mi-Wuk Pale Face

It's official, this has got to be the best pale ale I've ever tasted! Lighter than SNPA with more of a hop presence. The Magnum and Glacier hops shine through without being over powering. It pours a golden/copper color and smells slightly of fresh cut grass. It still has a slight yeast taste that will become less pronounced as the keg clears. It has head medium retention and a nice lacing down the side of the glass as you drink it.



I'm naming this beer Mi-Wuk Pale Face. A play on words for our favorite place - our cabin in Mi-Wuk, and the fact that two pale faces (my son and I) brewed it. It's also the first he's tasted when we were checking the OG before it went in the carboy to ferment. He looked at me and said "Not too bad."

I'll enjoy this beer as I brew an English Bitter this weekend.

Two good beers in a row, I am stoked!

1.010

1.010. That's the final gravity on all most all of the small ales that I've brewed so far. 3 weeks in the primary fermenter has worked out to be a pretty good plan to make sure that the beer is completely fermented out and given time to condition.

My son and I kegged the Pale Ale last night and it tasted pretty darn good. He even took a sip and said "Not bad". I don't know if that's a good omen since he's only 11 years old! I'm still looking for a name for this one. Here are the beers that I've brewed so far:

• Charlie's Brown Ale - A mild brown ale that turned out to be not so good. I went and infected the batch by putting in unboiled well water in the carboy. But, just like old Charlie Brown, I'll keep brewing even if someone pulls the football out from in front of me!
• Tinimamawiezen - A German hefeweizen that the SWMBO requested. Turned out gooooooooood with an excellent clove and banana profile.
• No Name Pale Ale - Good so far. I've got to give it one week on the CO2 at 12 PSI to get it to carbonate. I'll try it this weekend to see if it's ready for guests. Thinking of giving it a name with "Cheap Bastard" worked in which is how I refer to myself almost every day.
  

Up next: English Bitter. Got to come up with an oxymoron of a name since this one is actually very smooth with very little bitterness.

Mark picked me up another 6.5 gallon carboy today at B3 in Concord so I can start brewing 10 gallon batches. Yippee! I'm thinking my first 10 gallons will be my favorite, an American IPA with lots of hop profile and quite bitter. This one will be for me and the hard core hopheads! Hopefully I can get a few folks over for the brew day. Kind of hard since everyone I know interested in brewing is at least 30 minutes away and you can't have a good brew day without a few brews!

American Pale Ale - 03-01-08

We drained the 5 gallon keg of Hefeweizen at the bike race party on Saturday, so it's time to brew more!

Here's how the brewday progressed:

Heating the strike water.









Doing my calculations on the computer.









Sanitizer in the carboy.












The recipe.









Homework shmomework, I'm helping dad brew!









(insert picture of mashing here. Who the heck forgets to take a picture of this?)

First addition of hops by my big hopboy!









7.9 gallons of boiling goodness!









My first yeast starter.













The outcome from brewday:

Nailed my mash temp at 154 degrees.
Had to go to three sparges to get enough wort. Yikes! Now calculating grain absorption at 30%!
7.9 gallons of wort pre-boil.
5.25 gallons of wort post-boil. Have to watch the boil temps. Too high, obviously.
60 minute boil.
1 oz Magnum hops @ 60 minutes.
Whirfloc, Yeast Nutrients and Chiller @ 20 minutes.
1 oz Glacier hops @ 5 minutes.
1 oz Glacier hops at 1 minute.
OG - 1.43. Supposed to be between 1.48-1.55. A little less alcohol in this one.
Taste - Hoppy and gooooooooooooooooooood! Maybe a little too hoppy for some, but more for me!

This one will ferment for three weeks and go into the keg on March 23rd.

UP next: something the swmbo will like!

The little Hefeweizen that did!

Success!

This is one good brew. Tastes of banana and clove. Just like a German Hefeweizen should. Very reminiscent of a dunkleweizen with more of a yeast profile. Very good if I do say so myself. It still tastes a bit young, but should be full of flavor by this weekend!










OK, so here's the setup that I have now:

Not pictured is the CO2 tank sitting outside the fridge. I ran the gas hose from the regulator into the fridge following the water-in line for the water dispenser/ice maker.

Here is the keg inside the fridge with 5 gallons of goodness inside!













Up next: I hope to be brewing a pale ale this Saturday!

The Little Hefeweizen that Could

Alright, so things are starting to look up in my world of brewing.

First my wife let me turn the bottom half of our garage fridge into a kegorator of sorts! Second, the Hefe tastes like a very good, flat beer! It as kegged at 5 AM this morning and will be "force carbed" for 7-10 days using the "set it and forget it" method.

Here's the specs on the beer:

Brewed:
1-27-08

Grain Bill:
6.5 Lbs Wheat
4.5 Lbs 2-Row

Hops:
0.5 Oz Hallertauer @ 60 minutes

Yeast:
WLP300 - White Labs Hefeweizen

Gravity/Alcohol:
OG 1.042
FG 1.010
%AL 4.192

Fermentation:
3 Weeks
67 Degrees

Carbonation/Conditioning
7 - 10 Days
40 Degrees
12 PSI

So, this brew should be ready to drink between 2-26 - 2-29. Tasting notes to follow!

You're a blockhead Charlie Brown!

Well, I haven't posted here in a while and it's because the first brew didn't turn out all that well. It seems that I may have done a few things wrong, usually no big deal. But, one of the mistakes proved fatal for poor old Charlie Brown and 1.5 gallons of him has gone down the drain (I'm saving the other bottles just in case he decides to bottle condition himself back from the dead).

So, what whent wrong? Here's the short list:
Put my last addition of hops in with 20 minutes left in the boil instead of 1 minute.
Poured the junk (trub) from the bottom of the boil kettle into my carboy.
Didn't let the beer sit on the yeast long enough (only 11 days).
And last, but certainly not least, I topped off the carboy with unboiled well water - AKA "The Death Blow". It seems that well water isn't exactly clean of contaminates like it's well chlorinated cousin; "City Water".

So, after all that work and all that waitin:
It looked like beer.
It smelled like beer.
The first sip almost tasted like beer, but like it had been mixed with aspirin, lots of aspirin. Yuk!

Live and learn. I'm on to my second batch this Sunday, a Hefewiezen. It won't have any cute names, I'll do everything step-by-step, and I WON'T TOP OFF THE CARBOY WITH TAP WATER! ;-)

Charlie's Brown Ale

Yup, Reece named it. I was a little nervous doing this for the first time on my own, but everything seems to have turned out OK, so far.


The grain going into the mashtun on top of the strike water. The water was 169 degrees and after the grain went in I hit my temp of 154 perfectly.









My first mash!








The first runnings were very clear thanks to the 1" wire hose braid. I still recycled about 4 times because I may be a little anal retentive!







Into the Binford 9000 boil kettle. ;-)









My son ready to stir in the first addition of hops once we get to a boil. Thanks to the Binford 9,000 outdoor burner that I got from Home Depot, that didn't take long at 150,000 BTU.







After 30 minutes of chilling the wort was at 79 degrees. Perfect for putting into the fermenter.









5 minutes of shaking the carboy to aerate. Pitched the yeast at 70 degrees. A few more good shakes and it was into the closet with the fermentation lock and blow off tubing.

Now, all I have to do is wait about two weeks to allow the yeast to consume the sugar and turn this wort into beer!



Monday Morning update - I didn't have time to make a yeast starter, still the beer is fermenting slightly this morning. Yeah!