Poor Richard's Ale

Early to bed.
Early to rise.
Makes a guy
Badly disorganized!

Made my PRA today. Started at 8:30 a.m. with forgetting to put the bazooka filter in the mash tun. And no 5.2 pH buffer. Reaslized my error just before dumping the grain into the tun. Poured the hot water into the kettle and added 5.2. Put the bazooka into the mash tun and poured the water back in. Of course, it's now only 150F. Re-heat to 170 and add the grain. Perfect: 154F

It's really cold in the garage, so I take the mash inside. Still ends up at 145F at 30 minutes. Decide to decoct and scooped a couple quarts out with a strainer. Boiled it, back in the mash tun & stirred. 152F Good enough.

Duh! Forgot to heat sparge water. Get that hot & into the cooler. Argh! Forgot to allow for the cooler being at 35F like the rest of the garage. Sample Old Bog Water, Palmer Porter and CoC Brown.

Much better!

Put some water on to boil to warm up the sparge water.

Drain first run to kettle & start cooking. Add 5.2 to sparge water along with boiling water, 172F OK. Put first sparge water in mash tun & stir. 165F good. Drain to kettle & add water for third run.

Kettle looks full enough so I start the boil, 90 minutes total. Start weighing hops. Not enough EKG. Substitute 0.5 oz Cascades for bittering at 60 minutes. Miss 45 minute EKG add, add at 30 minutes along with Irish Moss. Make 15 minute add ok.

Cool & run to fermenter. Way short. Areate and pitch yeast anyway.

Drain third run to kettle and boil to protein break. Cool and add to fermenter.

5.75 gallons at 1072. Tastes fine. There's a new flavor, probably due to corn.

Relax and have a pint of Wet hopped IPA.

Edit: Drive to store and get the molasses!

Sounds like it still went okay!

Roger that on the corn flavor. I kind of like it though! Blame it on the "High Life" lover in me, but the cream ale I just did with 2 lbs. of corn in the grist turned out pretty freaking awesome. I wanted a classic american cream ale flavor, I got it, that's for sure!

I'm going to hold off on the PRA recipe for a while. Sam and I are workign on a beer engine, and once we get that thing built I think a nice old ale like PRA will go nicely.

It's bubbling away. I added 8 oz of molasses rather than 4, as I believe it to be an important flavor for an Old Ale. I love watching people try to figure out what's different about the ale. With the molasses it comes in at 1076 vs a TG of 1067. Probably due to the decoction.

8.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America 1.036 2
2.50 lbs. Flaked Corn (Maize) America 1.040 1
1.50 lbs. Biscuit Malt Great Britain 1.035 35
1.00 lbs. Special Roast Malt America 1.033 40
2 oz Black Patent Malt America 1.028 525
8 oz Molasses Generic 1.036 80

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.50 oz. Cascades 6 60 min.
0.75 oz. Goldings - E.K. leaf 4.4 30 min.
0.75 oz. Goldings - E.K. leaf 4.4 15 min.
Irish Moss at 30 minutes

Yeast White Labs Cal. V

Mashin 16 quarts at 170F with 5.2 buffer Mash temp. 154F
1/3 decoction at 30 minutes mash temp. 152F
Total mash time 90 minutes

First run 1 gallon
Batch sparge 5 gallons 170F with 5.2
Second sparge 2.5 gallons (boiled down to 1.5 gallons)

7.5 gallons total wort
5.75 gallons at 1076 to primary.

david_42 said:

It's bubbling away. I added 8 oz of molasses rather than 4, as I believe it to be an important flavor for an Old Ale. I love watching people try to figure out what's different about the ale. With the molasses it comes in at 1076 vs a TG of 1067. Probably due to the decoction.

8.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America 1.036 2
2.50 lbs. Flaked Corn (Maize) America 1.040 1
1.50 lbs. Biscuit Malt Great Britain 1.035 35
1.00 lbs. Special Roast Malt America 1.033 40
2 oz Black Patent Malt America 1.028 525
8 oz Molasses Generic 1.036 80

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.50 oz. Cascades 6 60 min.
0.75 oz. Goldings - E.K. leaf 4.4 30 min.
0.75 oz. Goldings - E.K. leaf 4.4 15 min.
Irish Moss at 30 minutes

Yeast White Labs Cal. V

Mashin 16 quarts at 170F with 5.2 buffer Mash temp. 154F
1/3 decoction at 30 minutes mash temp. 152F
Total mash time 90 minutes

First run 1 gallon
Batch sparge 5 gallons 170F with 5.2
Second sparge 2.5 gallons (boiled down to 1.5 gallons)

7.5 gallons total wort
5.75 gallons at 1076 to primary.

Click to expand...

Looks like a tastey recipe,I'll have too brew some.

Day Five: 1.024

A slow steady ferment, still bubbling 4-6 per minute. It has been giving off sour odors, but the sample doesn't. Rather sweet, molasses and corn are both noticable. I suspect another 3-5 days to finish the primary. Not much on the hops, but that's consistant with old ales.