Thursday, August 20, 2009

Day 6: Northern English Brown Ale

Currently the American Premium Lager is the only one not showing any signs of fermentation. I'm going to pull it out of the cooler and see if I get any sort of change. If not, I'm just going to repitch. I was a bit nervous about the Belgian Wit yeast I used yesterday, as it was a Wyeast Propagator pack that had accidentally been smacked on the way to the store. This happened back in June, but I decided to just put the completely expanded pack in the fridge with the rest. Almost two months from it's activation and expansion it still worked! So note to all slap pack users...if you accidentally get an expanded pack, or break your pack open...just throw it in the fridge. You can probably still use it. I get a lot of people calling or emailing who give up on yeast much too soon..sometimes it's still good (even if it's past expiration, like all of he yeast I've used so far, minus the the Belgian Wit.) Sometimes it just takes a few days for the yeast to multiply enough for you to see bubbles in an airlock. Doesn't mean it's not working.

Here's one of the malt containers I'm using as a fermenter. It's about a 3.5 gallon container. I get Munton's liquid malt shipped in them, it's their 33lb jerry pack. Have a few beers going in these...


On to the beer...

Beer #6 - Northcastle

Style: Northern English Brown Ale (11C)

Recipe: For 2 Gallon (Extract)

2.75 lb Muntons Amber Liquid Extract
2 oz Chocolate Malt
2 oz Crystal 20L
.3 oz Northern Brewer (8% AAU) (30 minutes, full boil)
.3 oz Kent Golding Hops (5% AAU) (last 20 minutes)
Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

Brewing notes: I have an "Electric Brew Heater" I use in the store to brew batches while I work. Unfortunately, it seemed to keep tripping the GFCI outlet today. In other words, no brewing while working today...had to do it late tonight. Not a true Newcastle clone, just in the same vein. Nice chocolate smell coming from the pot just from the couple ounces used. A nice basic recipe I've used before in a 5 gallon batch size. Original gravity finished at 1.048.

Cheers!
Aaron

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the daily posts! If you can make a month I'll be pretty amazed. I was wondering how you would have enough fermentation vessels, I guess that clears things up... But the space to ferment and store all these brews?

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  2. Keep going Aaron! I'm learning a lot about beer!

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  3. Hey hairybrew- Yeah...I have a chest freezer that already has a beer tower on top and some kegs in it, but I've adjusted it for my lagers. The shop currently has the ales fermenting at various locations...no real fermenting method/system as of yet. Hoping to get one in place before too long...

    Daisy- Learning eh? I'm a bit surprised your able to follow some of it..though it's pretty simple stuff;)

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