Mystery brew

[Kirkwooder]

My wife and I live way out in the middle of no where, and the closest Home Brew Supply is 60 miles away, one direction. I used to brew quite a bit more often than I do now, so to save trips, and money I would buy several batches at a time. I would measure out my grains for each batch into 5 gallon Lowe's bucket right in the LHBS and snap on a lid. Generally I would drop the recipe card right in with the grain so that I knew what I was brewing. I have about 10 of these buckets stacked in the back of the closet that I keep my brewing stuff in. When I wanted to brew I would go and pull out the bucket with the grains for what ever brew I had next on the agenda. I thought that all those brews had been brewed and enjoyed long ago, when low and behold, when cleaning out the closet last weekend, I find a bucket with about 12# of milled grain and no recipe card.

Now, you know I'm going to brew it. I can't just let it go. It seems clean and bug free, has been stored in the bucket in a cool dark closet with an air tight lid firmly in place. It would be a crime against at least one of the beer gods for sure, to just feed it to my chickens without trying to make beer from it, and I do not want want to anger them even the slightest.

The dilemma is, I have no idea what is in the grist. It appears to be mostly light colored malt with no corn or rice. I know I often brew a rye pale ale, but I can't really tell if this has any rye in it. I often brew a couple different IPA's, and one lager. I think that I remember wanting to brew a pale ale called AK47..... something from NB, but don't see that available on their site any longer. (Probably insulted some one with the name.) I really have no idea.

So, do I load it with hops, ferment it with US-05 and shoot for an IPA, or should I go light and noble, on the hops and pitch some slurry from a lager I have fermenting, and let it ferment low and slow? Would it be better to go modest with one, or more, of the 3c's and try for an APA.

What ever I do I will surly need to run it through the mill at least one more time.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

As I read this, I wonder what styles if any do you brew more than others. Seems like both options wold work to mak a good drinkable beer, it just may not fit a particular style which isn’t that important unless you want to enter it in a competition.

 

[ong]

12 lbs (for a 5 gallon batch) would put it at the high end of APA or low end of IPA. I would say just base the hop schedule on what you’ve got and what you want to be drinking! Whether it’s got rye or not shouldn’t limit your style options.

 

[Kirkwooder]

I mostly drink APA's and IPA's. I've been thinking that I would go conservative and just go with a cascade 1.5 oz. @ 60 1oz @ flame out and 2 oz. dry hop schedule. That would make a drinkable pale ale for sure. But where is the adventure in that?