Three guys from Central Jersey who were sitting around the firehouse lunch table discussing homebrews. Simon has been doing this for a couple years while Erik and Corey are slowly getting involved. Surely there will be many memorable brews coming up, which will all be shared on here! Please check back for the latest happenings! Cheers!
I decided with the fall months ahead, it was time to brew an Octoberfest beer. I decided to get an extract kit from morebeer.com. The issue with Octoberfests is usually they are brewed as a lager (in colder temperatures) which is not an option for me at this time. This kit was formulated to be brewed as a ale (at warmer temperatures). I decided to give it a go. Here are the ingredients:
Grains (steeped till water temperature hit 170)-
8 oz Caravienne
8 oz Caramunich
8 oz Abbey
Hops-
1 oz Perle (60 min boil)
1 oz Mt.Hood (1 min end boil)
Clarifier – Whirlfloc (Use ½ - 1 Tablet) (added with 5 mins left in boil)
SG- 1.06
FG- 1.16
5.87% ABV
Keeping the steeped grains in the water until it reached 170 degrees (or 30 minutes). I had to keep it in for 30 mins, as I reached 170 degrees much before the 30 minutes had expired.
Added Liquid Malt Extract and Hops, and then a clarifying whirlfloc
And then the all important yeast!
8/31/2013 Racked to a secondary (awesome dark orange color!)
1. Steep grains in 2.5 gallons of water at a temp of 150-160 degrees for 20 mins
2. Once the boil started, added all of the LME and corn sugar
3. Brought back to a boil and added 2oz of the Columbus hops and boiled for 45 mins
4. 2oz more of Columbus hops were added and boiled for an additional 15 mins
5. 2oz of Cascade hops were added and then the boil was terminated
The wort was then chilled
Frome here, the wort was transferred to a fermenter where the yeast was added and then sealed. An airlock was added, and then laced away for fermentation.
I am starting my second batch of beer. I decided to try the American Amber kit from Brewers Best. The Robust Porter is going to be a very dark and hearty beer, so I wanted to try something a little bit lighter. For this batch, I had my nephew and brother in law from CT helping me. Below I go over the finer points of sanitizing everything before we start.
Here is the ingredient kit we are going to use. This should be roughly a 5% alcohol beer once done.
Just like the last batch, 2.5 gallons of water heated up to 150-165 degrees before putting the grain sock in to steep for 20 minutes.
Very excited to introduce the "Laytoner" with this batch. It is a wort chiller constructed by Jim Layton, a man I work with at the firehouse. I showed him a picture of it and he said he could construct that. he constructed it, for half the cost so I told him I would name it after him. And, the "Laytoner" was born. This tool will allow me to chill the wort down quicker than the ice bath did in the last batch. Basically, you hook it to your faucet and the cold tap water will run through the copper lines and conduct the heat away from the wort into the water. From there, it runs through the copper tubes out to the drain of the sink. Very excited to use this!
Also notice, the sock of goodness is in the pot steeping.
Up to a gentle boil, we now add the malt extract. This kit had two....a dry malt extract and a liquid malt extract. Here is the videos:
The dry malt extract was a first for me..... learned to get it in quick and get it stirred before it caramelizes (which, does taste good).
Dry Malt Addition to wort:
The "Laytoner" sanitizing in the wort until its go time!
And Finally, Chill Out Time.....and the legend of the "Laytoner" begins:
And From here, its transfer to Fermenter (I used a strainer to strain away alot of the sediment that was already a part of the wort. We then took a specific gravity reading (1.060). From here we pitched the yeast and sealed her up!
-CT
8/5/2013
The American Amber was fermenting nicely at the 48 hour mark!
8/10/2013
Secondary Fermenter day! Switching from the primary to a secondary glass carboy!
