Back in the saddle

Ah, Labor Day weekend. Time for some sweet labor. Kicked off the weekend in grand fashion with the latest iteration of America pale ale. Slight modifications from last time. Ditched the .5 lb crystal 20 and added .5 wheat. Swapped Nugget for Warrior. Swapped the Amarillo for Cascade.
11lbs American Pale 2 row
1.5 lbs Malted Wheat
.5 lbs Munich

.5 60 Warrior
.5 12 Cascade
.5 12 Chinook
.5 4 Chinook
.5 0 Cascade
Should deliver 42 IBU


Preheated MLT with 3 gals boiling water this time. That was perfect.
4 gals at 166 gave me 153 on the nose which is what I was shooting for. 60 mins later it was 151.

First runnings were 2.5 gals @ 1.080. I really should have gone with my gut and used rice hulls. there was standing liquor at the far end of the MLT. Not sure if the hulls will up that initial run or not.

4 gals @172 for sparge. Held for 15 minutes and ran off. 1.030

Start of 6 gal boil 1.050
End 1.058

I'll take that.

I hope I can milk the Double Chin until this one is ready for some side by side comparisons. My hopes are that it will be slightly less sweet and a bit lighter color. Double Chin screamed cascade from the first taste so hopefully this is a step in the right direction.


Chilled wort down to 95 with chiller then put it in fermenter and put whole thing in beer fridge. Still waiting as I write this pitch the Northwest Ale Yeast.


Efficiency 60.3 with SRM of 4.8 according to http://www.brewheads.com

Unlike last time, this took off like a bat out of hell. Pressure in the airlock before I went to bed. Bubbling at 4 secs when I woke up. Got back from disc golf and there was a bulging bucket with the depressed part of the lid filled with foam. Installed the handy dandy blowoff tube and it is dare I say violently fermenting. Very very strange. Pitched at 72, it dropped to 70, now back up to 72. No idea why this is happening, but is smells great. We shall see rabbit, we shall see.

Sept 14 - moved to secondary and dry hopped with 1 oz cascade plugs. 1.014. First impressions. No bitter bite at all, I think the warrior was a good call, but should have gone heavier. Could have significantly upped the IBU's I am guessing but it should be nice and drinkable.


Sept 22 - Tasted it and it is going to be good. Light on the aroma so added another ounce of cascade plugs and weighted it down with a ton of glass beads. This should be interesting.