Second PM - Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale

I emptied my primary and one of my secondaries so I thought I would try to up my brewhouse efficiency a bit this weekend and try my hand at another PM. I figured with a PM I would have the safety net of some DME. I think I finally hit it, though Beersmith disagrees. I ended up with an OG of 1.064, which is what the recipe author stated he got, but Beersmith said I should be getting 1.073.

I stirred the mash twice at 20 minute intervals this time and I hit my mash temp right on. I batch sparged with two gallons of water and hit my sparge temp right on. Then I sparged again with one gallon and began boiling. I stirred during both sparges too, just to be safe. My initial boil volume was about 3.75 gallons which resulted in about 3 gallons of wort, to which I added two gallons of water in my fermentor. Its pretty dark now, though they hydrometer flask shows a nice copper color.

I used irish moss for the first time in this brew. The fermentor has between 4 and 5 inches of trub in the bottom already. Is that normal? I havent seen that kind of result in the past 8 batches I brewed. At any rate, I think this is going to be a great winter beer. I used a double starter (1 cup of DME in four cups water using Wyeast 1056 propogator smack pack), so I am hoping for a really strong fermentation.

Greg

Just transferred this to secondary and MAN does it taste GREAT! I am definitly making this soon. I can already tell that its going to be gone fast after its bottled!

Greg

While the first batch dry hops, I brewed another PM of this recipe because I can tell its going to rock. This time, however, my wife called while I was at the office to tell me that the airlock had sprayed water everywhere and the beer was starting to come out the top! I rushed home and sure enough it the krausen was coming out the neck of my 6.5 gallon carboy. I grabbed the blowoff hose, sanitized it and put it into a pitcher of sanitized water. Its bubbling away now and foamy junk is starting to travel along inside the hose. I am wondering if I got better efficiency and there is more fementables for the yeasties this time. Of course, I forgot to take a hydro reading before I pitched, so I have no idea what it was.

Greg

Can you post the recipe you are using this sounds like i might have to try this. Thanks

Sounds as though your methods are improving. A blow off tube really is a great safety net because you don't need to worry about air locks clogging. I use one for every batch.

Celebration Ale is a great beer, I have a modified version in bottles waiting for consumption very soon.

Psiclone said:

Can you post the recipe you are using this sounds like i might have to try this. Thanks

Click to expand...

Here it is:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=26480

Greg

Blender said:

Sounds as though your methods are improving. A blow off tube really is a great safety net because you don't need to worry about air locks clogging. I use one for every batch.

Celebration Ale is a great beer, I have a modified version in bottles waiting for consumption very soon.

Click to expand...

I am really impressed with how strong this fermentation is. I havent had one like this ever, though the last batch came close to the top of the carboy. My dad and I brewed a double IPA extract batch that blew the lid off his fementation bucket after the airlock got clogged with gunk. My mom was not happy

Greg