Parental Pale Ale

Brewed with my dad.

Recipe

Batch size: 5 gallons

Grain bill:

• 8 lb pale malt
• 1 lb Munich 10
• 1.5 lb organic Crystal 60
• 1 lb organic wheat malt

Hops:

• 1 oz Centennial (9.5%) @ 60
• 1.5 oz Cascade pellets (5.9%) @ 30
• 1 oz Cascade (whole) (5.5%) @ 10
• 1 oz Cascade (whole) (5.5%) @ 5

Yeast:

Wyeast 1056, washed from September 2010

IBUs: By my calculation, about 72.

Gravity: Aiming for 1.050 - 1.055.

Prep

June 12, 2010: 2 litre starter from 200g DME. One jar of washed Wyeast 1056, harvested in September 2010 and sitting in my fridge since. Smells fruity but otherwise okay.

Brew Day

June 17, 2011: 8 gallons of water to 75 C. Came down to 71 C / 160 F after a lot of stirring; Dad suggested using the chiller so we tried that. Took it down 5C in about three minutes, and after a while dove to 58 C / 135 F -- lower than I wanted. We'll call it an inverse step mash. Dark wort; the crystal could've been dialed back a lot.

June 18, 2011: Brew day! 6 1/3 gallon yield; came down to 52 C overnight. Gravity 1.041, so I should hit 1.047 - 1.052 depending on evaporation. And as it turns out, I hit 1.048, which I think is close enough for me. Smells wonderful.

Pitched the yeast. Didn't filter out all the hops (ominous music...).

Fermentation

June 18, 2011: Going vigourously by the end of the day.

June 19, 2011: Thar she blows! The hops plugged the blow-off tube and blew out the stopper. I sanitized it as best I could, fished out the remaining hops and some kreusen (too bad I don't have another batch to add it to), and put it back on.

Bottling

Date:

Tasting

Date: