Shea's Fire Red Rye Ale

This beer will be traditionally served with sparklers or tiki torches sticking into the beer glass.

Just kidding. I had leftover hops and crystal malt and I wanted to make a "lighter" beer for our house guests that are coming over on the 21st of this month. I named it after my little sister who is gaining a year on the 19th.

Here is my recipe:

1/2 lb crystal malt 40 L - preboil
6 lbs Breiss' Rye malt extract - 60 minutes
1 oz Centennial pellets - 50 minutes
1/2 oz Cluster pellets - 30 minutes
1 tsp Irish Moss - 15 minutes
1 oz Willamette leafs - 10 minutes

My brewkit came with a bottling vessel and so I used it as a fermenter for this ale.

I liked Breiss' extract way better. The label was easy to remove and the extract was also much cheaper than the "Cooper" that I used for Little Bear's Brown Ale.

The wort for this beer tasted really hoppy and I only got a starting gravity reading of 1.0048. I'm a little nervous that the beer will be too light - but hopefully those yeasts will do their thing.

My trusty assistant must love the smell of  hops:

Day 6 update:

The airlock wasn't producing a lot of activity so I took the opportunity to dry hop the brew with an ounce of Cascade hops.

Sure enough - when I opened up the lid - there was almost no activity. The krausen was pretty much gone at this point. Must have been some good yeasts. My original gravity reading was 1.048 and at this point my reading was at 1.013. Not too shabby. That would put the ABV at around 4.6%. I guess we will call it a session beer.

I put the whole leaf cascade hops into a muslin bag and weighed it down with a solid shot glass (it had a heavy bottom to it - hopefully it did the trick). Of course I boiled the bag and glass prior to putting it in my beer.

I tasted my sample of course. It was bitter without much aroma (hopefully the dry hop will help that) and a slightly dark color. I have renamed the beer "Shea's Fire Red Ale" to compensate for the color changes.

I also took the time to get my corny keg ready. I plan on putting it into the keg in a week or so.

Day 9 update:

Well the gravity reading this morning was still 1.013 so I decided to keg the beer so that it would have time to slowly carbonate and settle down.

 First I cleaned the corny keg out and replaced all of the gaskets. The inside of the keg was clean but the gaskets were gummy and sticky - so I'm glad that I did this. 

Second I went to Irish Welding Supply in South Buffalo to fill up my CO2 tank and I also stopped at the kegworks for some new gas line.


After filling the empty keg with CO2 I siphoned the beer into the keg and sealed it off.  I bubbled some CO2 into the keg through the beverage end and "burped" it from the gas side to get all of the oxygen out of the keg. I then thought it would be a good idea to put the beverage tap on - even though the beverage line was not hooked up. This of course caused beer to be shot out of the keg and across my kitchen. I do not recommend that anyone do this.

So after cleaning up beer I put the keg in the kegorator and hooked up the CO2 so that it can slowly carbonate. I'm going to try and pour a beer Sunday and then maybe on Tuesday as well (for band practice).

Day 10 update:

Ok, well it is done. My first finished batch of beer. I wanted to test the carbonation levels everyday so I poured my first beer. It isn't bad - probably will be better after a week of aging or so - but it's completely drinkable. Not a ton of carbonation - but it pours with a nice head and it's not too bitter. Probably could have used some more time with the dry hops - but it does have a floral aroma. The color is a bit foggy so hopefully a few days and it will settle down.

So there it is in the keg and ready for some drinking!

And that concludes this blog entry. My next update should be that my brown ale has finally stopped fermenting - although this might never happen at this rate.

Little Bear's Brown Ale

So for my birthday this year the wife got me a homebrewing kit. It was a nice starter set with a 5 gallon glass carboy, a plastic bottling container, and some other accessories. I bought a book called "Extreme Homebrewing" by the brewers at Dogfish Head ale and tried their starter recipe: the A-Z Brown Ale. I will probably change the name of the beer after it is done, A-Z sounds strange and not very appetizing. Anyway I will get back to that later on when the beer is done. Here is a photographic tour of my experience:

Here are the ingredients that the recipe called for:

Crystal malt 40L, crushed (1/2 lb) - preboil, Amber malt extract (6 lbs) - 60 min, Northern Brewer hop pellets (1 oz) - 50 min, Belgian candy sugar (1 lb) - 40 min, Cluster hop pellets (1/2 oz) - 40 min, Irish Moss (1 tsp)/Brown Sugar (1/2 cup)/molasses (1/2 cup) - 20 minutes, Goldings leaf hops (1 oz) - 10 minutes.

Prior to beginning the boil, I cleansed and sanitized all of the equipment. I placed a bowl with water & bleach (1TBSP per gallon) next to my sink to sanitize equipment as needed. I marked out 4.5 gallons on my carboy and then placed a towel on the ground where I planned on pouring the wort into the carboy.

I then got my pot ready to boil. I'm using a 5 gallon graniteware pot. It seemed to transfer heat well - but the handles remained very cool after the boil was done.

I used the small red pot to heat up the extract - which was very, very, very, very sticky. I should have removed the labels prior to this. I thought that they would be easier to remove when hot - but as I should have known - the cans were very hot and the labels difficult to remove due to this. It wasn't a big issue - except a piece of the label did make it into the boil and it was a pain to fish out of there. Oh well - first time brewing.

I added one of the two 2.5 gallon jugs to the main pot and then filled up the rest of it with the other - up to about 2" from the top of the pot. At this point I placed the crystal malt into a grain bag and soaked it directly in the cold water. Note that you should tie one end to the handle or else it can catch on fire from the burner. This happened to me.

At this point I employed the cover to heat up the water faster. I used a digital thermometer which fit very nicely between the pot and cover with the gauge sticking out so it could be easily read. This is important because when the water temperature reaches 170 the grain bag must come out and the extract goes in. Also this is the time to start the 60 minute count down timer.

I wish I got a picture of the extract addition but I did not. Note that when removing the crystal malt to hold the grain bag over the pot and allow to drain but do not squeeze the bag (adds too much tannins apparently).
Keep in mind when adding the extract that the cans are hot and the stuff is like hot glue. Dump it in into the water and scrape the sides of the can to get it all. Immediately stir after adding each can so the extract doesn't burn at the bottom of the pot.
I left the cover off of the pot from this point on.

Next I added the Northern Brewer hops at 50 minutes. They dissolve right into the wort pretty easily.

The brew was getting warm - close to a boil.

Next the cluster hops went in.

And then the candi sugar.

The wort was at a nice boil after I added these ingredients - making sure that stirred it very well (the candi pieces sink to the bottom and you can feel them clunking around with the spoon. I stirred til they completely dissolved).

A little later it was time for more sugar. I didn't realize it at the time, but sugar apparently increases the levels of alcohol AND also thins the beer. I guess I thought that a more syrupy wort would lead to a heavier, thicker beer - but those yeasts eat the sugar and crap out the alcohol (which is thinner and lighter than water). Who would have thought?

This was certainly going to be a sugary wort. Lots of sugar. The recipe also called for "Irish Moss" which looks like a lichen of some sort. It is used for clarifying the beer.

The last addition while the pot was on the burner was the aroma hops. The recipe called for Golding hops which are a hop variety commonly used in English ales. The aroma definitely did remind me of European beer more so than American hopped beers.
The hops were placed in a hop bag - similar to the grain bag method, but the hops float so you have to hold them down with the spoon or put a weight (silverware?) in the bag as well.

Note my assistant on the fridge:

After a few more minutes of boiling my 60 minutes were up. I turned off the burner and let the wort cool a bit. I removed the hop bag in the same manner as the grain bag.

Now is the time that you have to be super sanitary and sterilize everything.

I stirred (with a spoon sterilized in my bleach mix and rinsed with sterile water) the wort clockwise to allow some of the solids to settle at the bottom of the pot.

I gave the pot a few more minutes to sit as I filled the sink 1/3 the way up and added some ice cubes. This is creating an "ice bath" for the beer to rapidly cool it and allow for the yeast to be added.

I was a bit worried that I didn't measure the pot prior to starting the boil - but I figured that I could always just put it in the tub. It just barely fit.

The wort will heat up the water pretty fast so it becomes necessary to drain the water, remove the pot, refill the sink, and place the pot back in the bath of course. I had to do this a few times. It took about 35 minutes to completely cool to the wort to 74 degrees - a temperature for adding the yeast.

I didn't know what yeast to buy at the store so I found an ale yeast that wasn't the cheapest one (they ranged from $1.25 and up - this one was $4). I figured it wasn't good to skimp on the little critter responsible for making the beer - so I got this stuff.

Note that if you use this stuff - FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS! Which are to add the yeast to water (86-92 degrees) and then let it sit. I thought that this was crazy and I stirred it. It should still work - but I guess you aren't supposed to do this. The label was in like 4 languages so I figured that it was just a typo. It was not.

Pouring the beer into the carboy wasn't as bad as I thought. Make sure that the funnel is sterilized and the carboy is also.

I added water to bring it up to just before the 4 gallon mark. At this point I checked the gravity and it was a bit high so I added more water - up to the 4.5 gallon mark and measured again. 1.072 - just what I was aiming for.

That's a terrible picture so you will have to take my word for it. The beer had a great smell and I wish that I had tasted it.

So that was it. I popped the airlock and cork on and am done with the first phase.

Updates to follow.

Here is day one of the fermentation:

The weather (and barometric pressure) changed in Buffalo and I had an issue with water getting sucked back into the carboy. I kept a jug of clean water nearby to add periodically. It only did this for 8 hours or so - until the CO2 was enough to counteract the pressure changes.

The yeast activity wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be - but it has only been 24 hours. I can see bubbles rising and chunks of yeast floating up. The carboy is sitting in my basement and the temperature of the fermenter is around 62-64 degrees.



Update: Here is day 2 of the bubbling beer yeasts:

As you can see there is a nice amount of activity and the airlock is bubbling quite a bit. The beer is a nice dark brown but isn't all that cloudy. I'm excited and can't wait until it is done.
My kegs arrive early next week so my Rye-P-A will be in there sometime next week - and hopefully we can keg the brown ale the following week.

Oh and by the way - if you haven't seen the movie "Beer Wars" - rent it now. It is a great documentary about the beer industry.


Day 3 update:

Well no pictures today - I worked 12 hours and am pretty beat. I did have the energy to take a sample to get the gravity. It was at 1.048. The recipe calls for another sugar addition at 1.040 so I will have to wait for tomorrow. I did taste a sample of the wort and it tastes great (for wort). The hops are balanced like a nice European ale and I'm pretty excited for it to be done. I was contemplating omitting the maple syrup addition to finish up faster - but I'm not sure if I'm ready to start improvising on this batch (that's what the IPA is for).

Oh well - back to fermenting.

Day 4 update:

Word of the day: "Krausen". Here it is in a fermenting update: As you can see I have a nice krausen forming on my beer. The yeast apparently is having a good day. I'm not sure why - the temp did go up to 68 (from 66) but also I moved the fermenter when I took a sample yesterday - maybe it mixed things up a bit.

I was going to add the maple syrup in this evening - but I might wait for the fermentation to die down a bit more. I don't really want to krausen all over the floor. I'm going to wait until tomorrow, get another gravity reading and then maybe add the syrup. I'm still debating on omitting the syrup.

Day 5 update:

Well I took a gravity reading and it was 1.030. I decided to follow the recipe as well and I added the maple syrup. The book said to expect vigorous fermentation so I put a towel under the fermenter.

I tasted my sample and it is starting to taste like beer. Not overly hoppy - a bit sweet (as can be expected at this stage) - but a good wholesome beer.

OK - another week of fermentation now will bring us to the 17th. Hopefully the beer will be settled and ready to put into the keg! If not then I can fill up my corny kegs at "Pearl Street Grill & Brewery" for $40 - but I'd rather have my own beer to serve!

Barring any interesting developments, my next update will be on the 17th.

OK - after 3 weeks of conditioning in the bottle the brown ale is done. It still has a bit of "bite" to it but it is pretty good.