Brew #17: Lakefront Fixed Gear American Red Ale, March 8, 2015

A week and a day after taking the all grain brewing class, I shoveled the rest of the snow off of my back patio, invited a friend over, and brewed my first all grain batch.  For my first batch, I took a recipe from Northern Brewer and bought the ingredients from Bailee's.  I wasn't going to wait for shipping.  This is another entry in the "Clones of things I've never tried the original of" category, technically.  About 6 months later I did find one in Philadelphia in a bottle, but by then it was too late to make a fair comparison and the bottle was past expiration.

Recipe
Batch Size Target (Actual): 5 gal (5.5 gal)
OG Target (Actual): 1.065 (1.064)
FG Target (Actual) : 1.014 (1.010)
Brew House Efficiency Target (Actual) : 72% (77%)
IBUs: 42
Color: 14.9 SRM
Style: Amber Ale
Recipe Type: All Grain
Boil Time: 90 minutes

Water:
Acadia bottled spring water

Grains:
11.25 lbs US 2-Row
0.75 lbs Caramel 60
0.50 lbs Belgian Special B

Hops:
0.50 oz Columbus (pellets) @ 60 min.
0.50 oz Chinook (pellets) @ 20 min.
1 oz Cascade (pellets) @ 5 min.
1 oz Chinook (pellets) Dry Hop 7 days
1 oz Citra (pellets) Dry Hop 7 days

Other:
1 Whrilfloc Tab @ 15 min.

Yeast:
White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast

Brewing Notes
3/6/15 - Yeast Starter:
This was my no calculator 1 Liter yeast starter: 4c of water, 1/4 lb Extra light DME, 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient, boiled 10 minutes and chilled to room temperature

3/8/15 - Brew Day:

• Sanitized (star san) my cold side equipment in the big mouth bubbler primary.
• Heated 16.25 quarts of water to 163 F in 5 gallon economy stainless HLT on outdoor propane burner
• Mashed in in 10 gal Igloo cooler, paddled until everything was well mixed and there were no dough balls, Added about 1/2 gallon of boiling water to raise temperature to 153F.
• 60 minute mash rest
• 0 minutes: mashed in, temperature was 153F
• 15 minutes: paddled, temperature was 151F
• 30 minutes: paddled, temperature was 150F
• 60 minutes, began vorlauf
• Vorlauf process is very much manual.  I run a 2 cup measuring cup full of wort out of the valve and gently pour this on top of the mash.  Then I repeat until I'm satisfied with the clarity.  This takes about 10-15 minutes.
• Ran off and fly sparged with 18.5 quarts of 190F water
  
• Ran until the mash tun was dry, about 30 minutes
• Brought to boil
• Set timer for 90 minutes and added:
  0.5oz Columbus @ 60 min.
  0.5oz Chinook @ 20 min.
  1 tab Whirlfloc @ 15 minutes
  Wort Chiller @ 10 minutes
  1 oz Cascasde @ 5 minutes
• Moved kettle to the kitchen and chilled with wort chiller
• Siphoned to BMB,
• Took an OG reading of 1.062, corrected to 1.064.
• Pitched entire starter
• Put the BMB in the beer corner of the dining room with a blow off tube.

3/8 - 3/16/2015 - Primary Fermentation:
Krausen within 12 hours, blow-off within 24, continued through 3/10. Gravity was 1.010 when I racked to the glass carboy on 3/16.

3/16 - 3/31 - Secondary Fermentation:
Dry hopped with 1 oz each of Chinook and Citra on 3/24.  Moved the carboy to the basement and set on the floor to try to "cold crash" on 3/30

3/31/2015 - Bottling:
Bottled  with 4.3oz of corn sugar boiled in 2 c water to prime.  Gravity was 1.010 (6.8% abv). Yield was 50 12 oz bottles


4/26/2015 - First Taste:
This one took a little while to carbonate.  It was a cold April.  These tasted pretty good if not a little under-hopped, but I don't have any notes.  Mostly I was excited to have gone through the complete process from barley to beer.