Hello Future,

Brewing a pale based on Geary's Pale from Portland, ME with Willy and Jamie tonight.

Grain bill:
8 lbs American 2-row
12 oz Crystal 60L
3 oz Chocolate malt

Mashed in 3 gallons of water for 90 minutes at ~152 degrees Fahrenheit. Sparged with an additional two gallons at ~170 fahrenheit.

Hops:
1 oz Mt. Hood  60 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade  60 minutes
1 oz Tettnanger  15 minutes
0.5 oz Fuggles   10 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade   1 minute
0.5 oz Fuggles    1 minute

Boiling for an hour as we speak, then we'll cool the beast and pitch some Windsor British Ale Yeast.

Ideas for names? Tromboner Ale is the current frontrunner

Love,
Deez

Brooklyn Homebrew American IPA

Hey fellas,
I spent today brewing (and fucking up) a batch of IPA from a recipe I got from Brooklyn Homebrew, a cool brew shop in my neighborhood. I did a lot of things wrong: I mashed too hot (about 165 ˚) for too long before I was able to cool down to my target 152˚, I added my clarifying tablet at the end of the mash instead of the boil like a total bonehead, and I had a spillover when I added my first round of hops. This was my second brew, and a good learning experience in terms of what NOT to do. Hopefully the beer will turn out okay. My OG was pretty close to the OG listed on the recipe, so things might not turn out too bad. We'll see. Anyway, here's the recipe. I bet if you don't fuck it up like I did it'll be pretty good.

6/28/11 - Brooklyn Homebrew American IPA (a.k.a. "Idiot IPA")

Recipe O.G.: 1.062

11 lbs American 2-row

8 oz. CaraHell

8 oz CaraVienne

1 oz Columbus hops

2 oz Cascade hops

1 Whirlfloc Tablet

Wyeast #1056 American Ale

Orange peel from my tree

Instructions: 

Heat 14 quarts of water to 160˚, then add American 2-row, CaraHell, and CaraVienne malts. Cook for 60 minutes at about 152 ˚, and seperately heat 4 gallons of water to 170˚. After 60 minutes, heat mash to 170˚while stirring constantly. 

Pour mash through sparging bag into bucket, clean brew kettle, and collect wort. Slowly and evenly pour heated water through mash grains until you have about 6 gallons of wort. Re-circulate wort through grain once.

Boil wort for 60 minutes, adding Columbus hops at the start of the boil and 1/5 of the Cascade hops at 15, 30, 45, and 55 minutes, add orange peel at 55 minutes, then turn off the heat and add remaining Cascade hops. Cool wort to 70˚ in ice bath. Transfer to sanitized carboy, pitch yeast, and shake vigorously. Insert one end of sanitized blowoff tube into carboy and the other in a bowl or cup of sanitizer. Replace blowoff tube with airlock after 2-3 days, or when vigorous bubbling subsides. Wait two weeks, then siphon beer through sanitized bucket containing 1.5 cups honey and 1.5 cups water and into bottles. Wait 2-3 more weeks. Get shitty.

I'll let you know how mine turns out. Let me know if you give this one a try!

Much love,

RD

Ale Celebrazione

Ale Celebrazione

A Fat Tire local favorite clone for my sister's wedding based on a Belgian amber recipe. I added a little cinnamon to make it a little more festive and it is yet to be seen how that turns out. I bottled 4/30 and will report back with how it goes but it had a great amber color, tasted sweet and flavorful at the time of bottling.

Bloomer's Funktastic Brown

Here is the recipe for Bloomer's Funktastic Brown. It was a much hoppier brown than I expected which actually ended up being a pleasant surprise. My first brew ever, and it was a funky, tasty brew.

Wedding Brew

Rather selfishly, I want to use the blog to get a brew recipe asap to start for my sister's wedding in June. She wants a tasty, not too hoppy beer that everyone will enjoy. If someone could scan in their ideas for me sometime today, that would be awesome because I am anxious to go to the store and get it started.

Welcome Friends

Hey dudes and duddettes,

I have been thinking how I need more recipes for brewing and how we have all started brews from places all across this fair nation of ours. I propose that we use this blog to share stories, brew recipes, new techniques, etc. and use it as the first step towards starting a brewery together.

With each brew that you make, I propose that you scan in the recipe, write a short narrative of what you have done, take a picture of your brew in a glass, make notes on what worked or didn't, etc. I am psyched for this and hopefully you guys will be too.

dt, wb