23 November 2005

Dr. Cornelius






Oh man do I have no idea what I'm doing, trying to get this beer into a soda keg. It's 2 days before Thanksgiving at 12:30 am. I have a Ciabatta Biga starter in my kitchen, an empty fridge, laundry in the dryer, a carboy full of beer, and a clean cornelius keg (I'm hoping big man at the brew store re-conditioned the keg with clean parts, 'cause I don't yet have the tools to disassemble the muthafuka). I used this crazy iodine solution that scared the bajeezus out of me, and hope that it won't taint the beer. Commence racking...

I think it's pressurizing...if I wake up witha explodeded fridgerater then you all know why.



13 November 2005

Cascade

Dry hopped yesterday. So after 6 days, fermentation was still kickin but slowed. I quickly sanitized my other carboy and siphoned that good lookin stuff into it. dumped a nice amount (close to 1 oz) of cascade hop pellets right on top of it. A nice floating green layer formed immediately. Now to figure out how the hell to keg this stuff. Next weekend, my fridge will be taken over so get ready!

06 November 2005

R.I.P.A. Day

Steven Seagal and I first marked off 2.5 gallons on my big stock pot. We are loosely following the BridgePort IPA clone recipe in Beer Captured.

10 oz. cracked 40l crystal malt steeped in hot water (150 degrees) for 30 minutes.
Ladled a gallon of 150 degree water over, sort of a mini-sparge.

Added 4 pounds pale malt syrup.
Added 3.3 lbs extra light dry malt extract. That's a lot of powder. I love my new scale by the way.
Looking for a substitute for Chinook bittering hops. Decided on equal parts cascade and Golding; 3/4 oz of each.

Added a bit a water to bring the kettle up to the 2.5 gallon mark, bring to a boil. 45 min boil.

Added 3/4 oz each of cascade and golding pellets, plus 1 tsp. irish moss. Not Randy Irish Moss, as the Raiders just fell to The Chiefs in the last second of the game. Boil 14 minutes.

Add 1/2 oz. each cascade, golding, crystal (used whole hops for crystal), boil for a quick 30 sec or so, turned off heat.

Had no attachment for the wort chiller, so we put the kettle in the sink and ran cold water to fill. Slower, but seems to work.

Strained into carboy with 2.5 gallons spring water in it. Looks like yield is still low, need to add more water to hit 5 gallons. When temp hit 71, pitched 1056 American yeast.

osg: 1.034
fsg: 1.011 (nov 23)

1.034 - 1.011 x 105 = 2.5% alcohol. Well blow me.