My Bentley/PDX friend, Garrett, made the a New Year’s Resolution to 1) learn how to brew beer and 2) brew beer in 2012. I offered to let him borrow my homebrew set up since I haven’t been doing that much brewing these days. We met up last Sunday to watch the Patriots (WIN!) and brew some beer. The recipe he selected comes from Homebrew Exchange, called: Kevin’s Amber Ale.
The recipe is as follows:
- 6.0 lb Light Liquid Malt Extract
- 1.0 lb Crystal 80 Malt
- @60 mins 1.0 oz Centennial hops
- @ 5 mins 1.0 oz Centennial
- @ 5 mins 1.0 oz Mt Hood hops
- (dry hop 7 days) 1.0 oz Mt Hood hops
- @15 mins 1/4 tsp Irish Moss
In about 2 quarts of water, steep crystal malt at 155F for 30 minutes. Remove grains and rinse with 2 qt hot (~170F) water. Discard grains. Bring total volume in pot to 3 gallons. Bring to a boil. Turn off heat and add half of malt extract. Stir until dissolved. Turn heat back on and bring to boil. Boil for 60 minutes. Adding hops and Irish moss according to schedule. At 15 minutes before end of boil, add the rest of liquid malt extract (turning off heat to avoid scorching). Cool wort to about 75F, add to fermenter. Add clean H2O for total volume of 5 gal. Pitch yeast around 70F.
That last part is key. Pitch yeast around 70F. For those of you who don’t know, yeast is a living organism. If it gets too cold, it dies. If it gets too hot, it dies. Since I don’t own a wort chiller I drop the temperature in my carboys by filling it up with a bag of ice before adding my hot wort. Since I was brewing at a friend’s house I completely forgot to add ice and thus pitched the yeast when the wort was ~100F!
What a great teacher I am!
Needless to say, we had some dead yeast in our beer. Lucky enough, wort doesn’t go bad with 100 billion dead yeast cells in it. (I know, gross, just don’t think about it.) Garrett ran to the store, bought another Yeast Pack and saved the day. We are now a couple of days into fermentation and the beer is happily bubbling away.
What is your worst home brewing mistake?
Brewing with old hops. That has been my worst mistake so far.
Also instead of using a wort chiller I use a cold water bath with a tub or large sink. Takes about 30 minutes and my wort is down to about 70degrees. I’ve found I can pitch my yeast at about 80 degrees and it works just fine. As long as the water is less than 85 you should be fine
How old is old in your opinion? I’ve got some hops from last winter I was thinking of using.
Cold water baths also work, but not when you are at a friends house. Also, having one of those fish tank temperature stickers are super helpful rather than just guessing.
Two problems with this:Firstly, with the lid off your becukt, and you standing over it, you risk dust falling in and infecting. But I’m sure you know that.Secondly, the proteins that create a stable head only work once. All that frothing denatures those proteins and leads to poor retention in the final product. Buy a O2 tank ($5) and a diffusion stone ($10) and you’ll save a lot of time and see improvements in your beer.Keep brewing!
I’m okay with a little dust, lots of old-school breweries use open fermentation. I’m definitely planning on kegging once I get into my new place.
I found your site through Homebrew Exchange!
I can totally relate.
A couple months back I was teaching a friend how to brew. I’ve been kegging for a while now and when we got around to bottling his Scotch ale, I totally forgot to add the priming sugar. Oops. . .
http://www.vanportcitybrewing.com/2011/11/all-you-need-to-bottle-condition-is.html
Another Portland brewer! Awesome. So glad you found my blog and thanks for sharing yours!
Oh sugar…oh delicious (and precious!)
Oh, that sounds ghmity tasty.I love your blog; your reviews are written in a great style that satisfies fellow avid beer lovers and invites new-comers at the same time (I think). Also, your tasting reports are among the best I have ever read. I am away in Canada for school, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say your descriptions (and lovely photos) of great local brews can take the place of me drinking them myself, they sure do help with the homesickness!Keep up the great work!
Thanks Ritchie! Hope school goes well.
Yikes! I don’t have a wort chiller either so I usually just let it cool inside the brewing pot/kettle and then just add the extra water and yeast.
I added a whole bunch of LME to a batch once, but forgot to stir it up. The LME settled at the bottom and got totally burnt. I bottled it and tried it anyway, and the beer had a distinct burnt flavor. It also tasted really acidic (maybe because the malt burnt) so I dumped 45 bottles out!
Oh! I hate when that happens! I always turn off my burner when I add LME to avoid that happening.
HOOH -> 2 H2O + O2 True, But is that left over oxygen desiolvsd in solution so that the yeast can utilize it? A quick google search for THE EFFECT OF HYDROGEN PEROXIDE ON YEAST GROWTH AND FERMENTATION gives a simple answer NO . It’s properties of being a disinfectant, antiseptic, and oxidizer most likely outweigh any beneficial properties of adding oxygen to the solution I’ve heard of people trying this before, and in my opinion it’s an old wives tale, like a Yeti, fiction
Thanks for the suggestion, Sarah!
That is genius. One of the best thngis I have noticed in the 4 years I’ve been brewing is all of the innovative thngis other homebrewers have done to either make the brewing process easier or more effective. And some shit makes me laugh. For instance there is a video on here of a guy aerating his wort with an airstone from a fishtank.
I like your fantastic web site, I was searching for this all over.
best regards,
Ron
Glad you liked it Ron!