I'll cut to the chase- I just got dragged to the movie 'Julie & Julia' and it semi-inspired me. I want to brew at least a gallon of beer a day. This might not happen, but I want to come close. I'll probably enter a few in competitions.
I've been home brewing for 12 years and have never entered my beer in a home brewing competition. I have a pretty good grasp on the hobby, and I want to see what others think of my beer...sort of.
Since college, I haven't been in a single house or apartment for more than 10 months over the last 5 years. It's made brewing tough. Small apartments, temporary sublets, it seems I dragged my equipment across the country, just to stare at it. Now, I want to brew, I need to brew.
Things are changing, though the apartment is still small. I'm running a small homebrew shop, and although my time is more limited than ever before, people expect me to brew. I expect me to brew. It's a job requirement, a good one, and it's part of the reason I'm writing this blog.
So let's get to it.
Beer #1 - "The Other Pale Ale"
Style: Belgian Pale Ale (16B)
Recipe: For 1 Gallon (Extract)
1 lb Munton's Light Dry Malt Extract
.15 lbs Clear Candi Sugar (last 2 minutes)
.25 lbs CaraMunich Type II (steeped at 152F for 20 minutes)
.3 oz Sterling Hops (6% AAU) (30 minutes, full boil)
.25 oz Bitter Orange Peel (last 10 minutes)
Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes Yeast
Brewing notes: I love CaraMunich. 1, 2 or 3, they all taste great. I use it primarily in an Oktoberfest recipe I have, but for some reason, I really thought it'd work well in this beer. My steeping temp climbed from 152 to 180 over the course of the steep because I wasn't watching. Not a big deal. Threw the candi sugar in at the end...almost forgot about it. Got an original gravity of 1.054. After a 30 minute boil my 1 gallon became a half gallon. Added water to cool it down and pitched the yeast. Not sure how long I'll let it go in the primary. Oh, when iw as working on this recipe I decided to leave out coriander, no idea why. If you make this little recipe, you may want to throw a bit of coriander in at the end. Also, I've been recommending Sterling as a substitute for Saaz, but was unsure how close they really were, except that I've seen it used a lot as a substitute for Saaz. So, I gave Sterling the go ahead.
Off to watch the first Packer's preseason game!
Cheers!
Aaron
UPDATE 8/23/2009 (8 Days) : Transferred to a secondary fermenter. Ended up being a bit of a rushed process, as I was transferring in store and had customers coming in and out. Smelled and tasted right on. Phenolic, with clove and hop characteristics. Didn't taste much spice flavor, but am hoping some develops.
UPDATE 9/1/2009 (17 Days) : Bottled today! The flavor mellowed out some. Not phenolic and a bit spicy. Nice and smooth. Final gravity was a bit high 1.020-1.022. It looked nice and tasted nice, so I'm expecting a nice beer after carbonation.
Bottled: 6 - 500ml Flip-Top Bottles. Probably could have gotten one more 12 oz bottle had I been on my A game during bottling.
I like this idea a lot. I've been giving some thought to brewing very small batches like this for a while. The process seems faster and very managable compared with making a 5+ gallon batch. I'm also thinking this would be an easy way to get into all-grain brewing without buying the mash and sparging equipment... I vote for an all grain recipe on the blog next!
ReplyDeleteIs that a growler you brewed into? What do you use for fermenters for the 2 gallon batches? Do you think it would work to use my 7 gallon stainless fermenter with a 2-gallon batch, or would that be too much head space?
Hi John-
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's much faster (maybe no decoction mashing or fly sparging...) but it is definitely more manageable.
I'm fermenting in a one gallon jug, like the cider jugs you can get at grocery stores. I'm currently using 2 gallon fermentation buckets and Munton's Jerry Pack containers (how they ship 33lbs of malt), which look a lot like a hedpack. They're rectangular and fit about 3.5 gallons I believe.
I believe you'd be on the edge with headspace in a 7 gallon stainless fermenter. As a primary, it might be ok, since so much CO2 is pushing upward. As a secondary, you'd be leaving your beer with a lot of air. My general rule is it should be half full or more for primary, and 2/3rds full or more for secondary.
Doing a 2 gallon all-grain batch today!
-Aaron