In my attempts to make good tasting beer and get away from the "Kick you in the crotch, knock you on your rear" high alcohol content beers, I haven't been able to make a beer that is the average 5% abv. So for that I'm sorry to the beer. As for my apologies to Alaska, I have a rule about my beer naming process. I will not name a beer until I am in the brewing process because I feel each beer has its own personality and it allows for me to capture that essence with the name. However, I really wanted to name my latest beer, a Scottish Ale style beer, Wet Willy's. The beer did not disappoint.
I'm sort of a pyro so I like to play with fire from time to time, as you can see above. My playing with fire though may have kicked the weather into a tizzy and thereby allowed for me to officially name my beer Wet Willy's. You see, the weather warmed up just enough that the fair amount of precipitation that was about to fall probably changed from snow to RAIN. For the next 8-10 hours it rained which turned Alaska, at least the Anchorage/Elmendorf AFB area, into a skating rink of slush and ice. So, Alaska, I'm sorry, but not completely because I was able to name my Scottish Ale, Wet Willy's. Now onto it.......
I'm always trying to make each and every recipe I make my own, as a matter of fact this recipe didn't take shape until I was actually standing in the grain room of my local home brew store, Arctic Brewing Supply Co here in Anchorage, AK. I was talking to my wife about what kind of recipe to use and even had her search on the Internet on my phone for one. I finally, using another recipe as a guide, came up with a make-shift Scottish Ale recipe. 7.25 pounds of CaraMunich, .5 pounds of Crystal 120, and of course .25 pounds of Roasted Barley for body and color. I also went with some hops I have never used before but I must say I'm impressed with, Northern Brewer, I used one ounce each for bittering and aroma for 2 total ounces.
I've been having issues with trying to figure out just the correct amount of water to use for my all grain adventures, but programs such as Beer Smith and my iPhone app Sparge Pal are a great help. This was my first Beer Smith beer, I'm using the trial edition now but I will be getting the full version soon. If you haven't seen it or used it, even after only one beer I'm saying get it and use it. Following the amounts given, I started the beer, and like last time, covered the cooler with a blanket to help keep the temperature where it needed to be.
Nighty night beer......
Once you get the first run off after the grains have sat long enough in the water, you want to pour that back over the grain bed to filter off as much of the grain husks and bits that made it through your SS braided tube in the bottom of the cooler. Doing this over and over again until the sweet wort runs clear is the process, but its difficult to pour the wort back over the grain bed without disturbing the grains without creating "tunnels" to the bottom or breaking up the grain bed altogether. Last time I didn't do that cause I didn't have anything that would help with pouring the wort back over the grains. This time, in my quest to do things as easy as I possibly could, I made a contraption that would help me.
I took an old plastic Folgers coffee container, that has a handle built in on the side, and drilled holes in the lid as you can see with the smallest drill bit I had. The only drawbacks to this rig, is there is no insulation between the handle and yourself so I would suggest wearing a glove to use this rig, and it doesn't have a vent hole for air to come in. I solved the later by poking a hole in the bottom of the coffee container, which of course means while its filling you need to have that hole plugged, again a glove will come in handy at this point. Here is the rig in action, you can see it doesn't disturb the grain bed and gets the job done.
Its a very slow process, I think this actually took about an hour in itself, for both the runoff and the remaining hot water to complete your wort volume for your boil. Then of course its onto the boil, like I said earlier, I'm sort of a pyro....
You can see the dark color of the beer in the brew kettle on the left here, running clear as far as grain bits in the wort but a nice dark color. I had some issues getting the temperature up to a boil when I started with it on the fire because of the cold, wet weather. It eventually started boiling and I got the process moving. Unfortunately my iPhone died on me about 10 minutes from the end of the boil, so I have no pictures for the rest of the night, but the last few processes of chilling and adding the wort to the carboy, pitching the yeast, and then of course cleaning up, when just as you would think. I'm anxious to get this beer in the bottle and see just how its going to taste. I'm a little upset that I used Fermentis Dry Ale yeast instead of paying the 11 dollars more to get a Scottish Ale Yeast, I'm reading that I'll miss some of that smokey flavor consistent with a traditional Scottish Ale, but I was going for cheaper. Shrug and Press On. There is always next time..........
No comments:
Post a Comment