Batch 12- 6 Months in the Making

Not really 6 months in the making, it’s just been that long since I’ve brewed.

I’m dead broke.  So, one day a friend approaches me with an offer:  He’ll buy the ingredients, I brew the beer, he takes a portion as payoff for his investment.  Sounds good to me!

So, I scoured my Joy of Home Brewing book, and came across a recipe that I wanted to try.  Good Life Pale Ale.  Papazian says he brews it 3 to 4 times a year to guarantee the good life.  If he loves it that much, it must be good.

So, first thing I do is figure out what hops I’m substituting, as the recipe calls for Fuggles and Kent Goldings (neither of which I have, nor do I want to buy any, given I have almost 3 lbs of hops in my freezer.)  So, I chose Hallertauer for the Fuggles replacement (bittering hops) and Willamette for the Goldings (30 minutes into it, plus aroma hops.) 

My first problem is that I don’t have a brew pot big enough.  I have a 3 gallon pot and a 4 gallon pot.  So, what I did is did the protien rest in the 4 gallon and a standard generic 1 gallon pot, then used the 3 gallon to boil water for stage two.

Once I reached stage two I had a problem.  I needed to add 5 quarts of boiling water to the 4 gallon pot.  It was full.  I needed to add 2 quarts of water to the 1 gallon pot.  It was full.  So, what I did was dumped the boiling water in a plastic bucket and use my 3 gallon pot in conjunction with the 4 gallon to do the conversion.  I added 3 quarts of boiling water to each (a bit more than called for, but what the heck.)  The temperature steadied around 150, a little lower than what Papazian recommends, but everyone else at the beer store recommends doing your conversion at 148, so what the heck, I thought I’d give it a shot.

45 minutes later and conversion is done.  I upped the temp on both to 158 for 20 minutes, then to 168, then time to sparge.  During the whole conversion, I was taking the gallon pot, boiling water in it, and adding it to my plastic bucket.  That way I had over 6 gallons of water at high temperatures, which made it far easier to get it up to my sparging temp of 170. 

I dumped the grains into my zap-a-pap lauder tun, and began to sparge.  My first attempt I didn’t look at the levels of the water, and I had actually put too much in.  It spilled out the back.  After draining the water I had to clean up my mess and keep sparging.

Now, I decided to follow my friend Jared’s advice:  sparge till the water starts looking clear.  Unfortunately, after doing this, I had over 9 gallons of wort. 

9 Gallons of Wort

9 Gallons of Wort

 I began reducing it down at 12 noon.  At about 4PM I was able to empty the extra bucket of wort into the other two buckets.  By 8PM it was reduced enough to begin the boil.

I added 2oz of Hallertauer hops to the boil and let it go for 1/2 hour.  Then I added 1oz of Willamette hops.  When it had 3 minutes left I added another ounce of Willamette hops into the wort.  Once said and done I had a little less than 4 gallons of wort.  I poured it into my fermentation bucket (which was soaking in sanitizer solution during the entire boil) and topped it off to 6 gallons.

Good Life Pale Ale

Good Life Pale Ale

Tomorrow I’ll pitch the yeast, next week I’ll bottle, and in two weeks I’ll be enjoying the good life!

Batch 13 is ready to brew as well.  I have some wild hops I got for free, so I’m planning on making a beer with 10 lbs of 2 row and 1 lb of crystal malt and adding the wild hops to see what I get.  Should be interesting.

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1 comment

  1. It taste yummy! I actually like it.

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