Burnaby Harvest Ale

The hop harvest for 2013 was not huge -- lots of mold this year, probably because we left things too long. Still, we had enough to hop this...

Recipe

Batch size: 5 gallons

Grain bill:

• 6 lb pale malt
• 1 lb wheat
• 3 lb Gambrinus ESB
• 0.5 lb Crystal 120

Hops:

• 1 oz Magnum (14.1%) @ 50 mins
• A bunch of homegrown hops (Cascade + Willamette) at 60 (4 oz?)
• A bunch more at 30 mins
• A bunch more at 5 mins

...seriously, it was just a big hop soup at the end. I did not keep track.

Yeast: WLP 001 (Cal Ale)

Brew Day

October 6, 2013: Off to a late start -- heating water for mashing at 6am, mash at 7am, boil at 8.15am...man, I'm a slacker. Target gravity was 1.054, and I hit 1.051 into the carboy -- but that was only by squeezing the grains a lot. Next time I need to adjust my calculations / throw in an extra pound.

As mentioned, this was a big ol' hop soup. Final yield was about 5 gallons. Hydro sample was hoppy, but not as hoppy as you'd expect given how much went in.

Bottling

October 14, 2013: FG 1.013, so I'm going to call this 4.9% ABV. Eli helped me wash bottles, but wasn't willing to stick around to help with the rest. His loss...this is AWESOME right now. There is a metric crapton of hop flavour in here, and a touch of sweetness that I thought was the dextrose but can't be, 'cos I took the hydro sample before it was added. I am really, really looking forward to this.

Tasting

Date: