First All Gain Attempt - Ed Wort's Haus Pale Ale

I'm about to crush my grain and start steeping. StagStout of this forum suggested it. I told him I wanted to try something I would like, but that would also be drinkable by the masses.

The last thing I bought and brought home was Oso's "Black Scotch" and lately I've been buying Summit "Great Northern Porter" as a reference to my tastes.

Ill try to keep you posted as I go. Has anyone ever lost 8 22 oz bottles of beer and found them two years later?

;-) My wife found some of my first Brewers Best IPA Whoo Hoooo!

This is the original thread BTW.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale-31793/

...and I had considered trying to do 40 gallons at once, but with "my little equipment" I'm thinking I'd never get completed.

First steep started at 165 deg. Coleman Extreme 70 quart cooler. Tried to guess at the temp of the grain and water mixed. It onlt lost 2 deg over an hour with the top cracked open a tidge too.

It looks kind of thin too. 21 lbs grain, 15 gallons water. Did I miss something in may calculations?

I have a 1 lb bag of Cascade hops as buds. The recipe calls for 2 oz total for each batch. Is there a good way to measure out hops? Do I need to chop them or anything?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/should-i-use-hop-pellets-whole-hops-dry-hop-question-too-163319/

OK, some answers there....

OK,

It was draw to my attention that I didn't do a second sparge with clear water. I'm short by 3.5 gallons-ish. I added a little. I have about 9 gallons of wort. One pot is 1.045 SG the other is about 1.053 SG. I didn't bother mixing them. More chance for infection.

I thought I should have ended up with 12~13 gallons. It smells good. I got 18 oz of cascade from hopsdirectonline.com. They threw in two free ounces. I knew I needed 4 oz total for a doubler, I split it out by eye. The local groc I stopped at on the way home had no small scales for weighing....

Then the guy that was straightening me out mentioned that you can re-sparge and make something that sounded kind of old Celtic Druid-y, "Lambic"???

OK - I'm about to start new thread. Man that stuff smells bad.

One day into fermentation. 2" head space in SS 5 gal pots. The foam is pushing the lid off of one and it smells great. It's probably the one with the higher specific gravity. The other one is right behind it. Note a plastic garbage bag put aroud a short sided cardboard box should work for an overflow tray.

Man the walk-in closet I have it in smells great

David 42 wrote "Given your high strike temperature, you probably have a lot of unfermentable sugars, so don't be surprised if the final gravity is higher than expected.
"

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/against-rules-8624/ Post #7...


Damn....

I was afraid there would be a problem sparging too hot.

OK, I took a reading tonight. Star San for everything....

Um, I got 1.003 if I'm reading it correctly. The temp was 60 deg F though. How is that going to affect me? When it warms up will it drop a tad yet?

Thanks,
Bill

1.003 is really dry. according to Ed's original recipe he hit 1.011 (8 points higher than you) If it's down that low, I'd say you're probably done, take a couple more readings over the next few days. It's only been 6 days since you brewed it right? Give it another week or so at least.

If, however, you meant 1.030 instead of 1.003, then I'd say you're either just not done fermenting yet, warm it up and let it go -- or it's stuck, in which case: swirl yeast, warm up, see if it continues.

If your mash temp was really 165F as you said above, then you mashed really high and would, in theory, have a highly unfermentable wort, so I'm not sure how it could have gotten down to 1.003.

-Arch

Thanks Archie, I'll take another read.

I pitched yeast Monday night. I know a week is a pretty short time.. It's only been 5 days. StagStout said that Nottinghams is a quick acting yeast.

Acording to the previous quote I'm expecting a lot of unconverted sugars because of the high heat at mash.

I re-read the hygrometer today. The closet warmed up overnight. The temperature read 70 degrees. I had my oldest son check that I was reading th hygrometer correctly.

I had 1.008 in one pot and 1.005 in the other. One pot has a heavier Pabst smell and darker color. The other has a more Summit Pale ale smell to it and is lighter in complection. I just sparged into two pots and didn't comingle the results.

The top of the pots are clear liquid with little or no bubbling, some of the hops have dropped to the bottom.

I have time today. I've been working overtime and during the week can get to be a squeeze. I think Ill bottle tonight.

[URL=http://img214.imageshack.us/i/11002.jpg/] [/URL]

Test - Imageshack album

...I can click the image and page through the album, but I don't see the lavels I placed.

After I cappped my other "Crash Test Dummy", I tried one of my Ed Wort's Pale Ales. It should be good beer in about 5~6 weeks.

I think it will be too "light for my tastes though.

...pot "A" batch is very beer-like after two weeks and showing signs of good head. It also seems to have good alcohol content, Pot "B" is lacking head so far.

...Happy New Years.

2 Oz total - Cascade pellet EDIT 8.3% AA addition as as follows:
.........1 oz @ 60 min.
......3/4 oz @ 12 min.
......1/4 oz @ flameout
Set on back deck @ -15F overnight

1 pkg safale 04 - will be re-hydrated and sugared up for about 8 hrs (my friend Karl gives me a hard time if I refer to this as a starter) - pitched in the morning.
8lb pale malt (per Ed)
2lb vienna malt
1/2 lb cara-hell

Ed's thread is up to 86 pages!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/bee-cave-brewery-haus-pale-ale.31793/page-86


It will be beer.

Quote
Mash
Single Infusion mash for 60 minutes at 152 degrees.
I batch sparge in a 10 gallon water cooler with a stainless braid manifold. Click here for great info on Batch Sparging.
Dough-in with 3.5 gallons of water. After 60 minutes, add 5 quarts of 175 degree water and begin vorlauf. My system only takes about 2 quarts before it clears up, then it's wide open to drain in the kettle. Have another 3.25 gallons of 175 degree water ready for the next batch sparge. You should then get 6.5 gallons to your kettle for the boil.

Vorlauf, huh?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/batch-sparge-101.168894/#post-1952375

...cold or hot, or what?

This is supposed to clear the wort in the mashtun?

With a conventional mash tun, the grain is supposed to form a filter but the first little bit will have grain particles that got through before the filter go extablished. Vorlauf is returning this little bit of wort to the tun so it filters through the grains. Don't get too excited about clear wort. It isn't necessary for clear beer. You just don't want too many husks or larger particles in the boil.

RM-MN said:

With a conventional mash tun, the grain is supposed to form a filter but the first little bit will have grain particles that got through before the filter go extablished. Vorlauf is returning this little bit of wort to the tun so it filters through the grains. Don't get too excited about clear wort. It isn't necessary for clear beer. You just don't want too many husks or larger particles in the boil.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation. I have done filtering with the grain bed like that, just never knew it had a name. One word to replace the phrase "filtering through the grain bed" is pretty efficient though.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...ACJoC/w530-h942-n-k-rw-no/20171231_165419.mp4

link to my wort collection and the humidity running down the back door.

From 6:00 to 11:00-ish was enough to turn both buckets to slush from boiling. I brought them in, thawed them, and pitched my Safale S-04 at 55 degrees and 1.054 O.G.

This is my first use of a Fast-Ferment conical I won in a raffle.