Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Water Quality

I got a call back from Easton Suburban Water Authority about water quality. The woman was really nice (Erin?).

Last year is published here: http://www.eswater.net/report_2007.pdf
Here is what I done learnt about 2008.

Calcium 15.7 ppm
Hardness 54
ph 7.15
Sulfate 23.1

Supposedly bicarbonate is calcium + magnesium and magnesium is a property of hardness and calcium? That will take a little bit of research.

Reason so soft she said was because we drink from the Delaware, not from ground water, so the water does not absorb nearly as much minerals as other cities/wells may.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Amarillo Pale Ale

This is more of a placeholder because I have what I thought was piles of notes to put in for my first all grain batch.

Starting at the end, I bottled today. 1.008 FG. It is outstanding. Amarillo hops really gives it a unique aroma. Should be a real easy drinking beer. Perhaps 5 more ibu's next time? We will see.

April 19- Dryhopped with 1 oz Amarillo plugs split between 2 muslin bags. Put 8 marbles in 1 bag and it did not sink.

April 11- Moved to secondary.

April 4- Brew day.
There was a lot of confusion on my part as to the grain bill. I have notes for both 9 and 10 lbs of pale malt and changed it at least 4 times. I need a new system to log this stuff.

UPDATE: Keystone Homebrew Supply asks for my phone number for a reason. Josh looked it up and it was in fact 10 lbs of Breiss pale malt

Grain Bill
10lbs 2 row Pale Malt
1lb Crystal 40

Water
Put 3 gals hot tap water (119F) into Mash Tun for 30 minutes to get the temp up. Then moved that 3 gals to the HLT.

Process
Alternated adding small parts grain bill and 3Gals 164F water to the mash tun. Stirred and capped.
7 mins 147F. Too Low.
15 mins added 2 qts boiling water and stirred. Temp to 154. Perfect.
45 mins started runoff after recirculating 1 gal. 1.054 @152 Temp adjusted this was 1.070
60 mins Batch sparge 3 gals 168F water. Mash temp 166
95 mins started runoff after recirculating 1 gal and lit brew pot. SG temp adjusted was 1.038
120 mins had 18 cups extra but ended up using 8 of them. to cover for evap

-virtual timer reset to run in reverse now-
70 min boil
60 minutes 1 oz 8.5 AA Amarillo pellets
30 minutes added 2 more cups of mash water
30 minutes added .5 oz 8.5 AA Amarillo pellets
15 minutes anded 1 whirlfloc tablet
4 minutes added 1 oz 8.5 AA Amarillo pellets
0 minutes added .5 oz 8.5 AA Amarillo pellets

Pitched Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

1.054 FG @ 68F