Pale Ale and a Hefeweizen- Batch 29 and 30

Today had some friends over and we brewed two beers simultaneously.  Been thinking about what to brew for a few days, knowing today was coming, and was having my normal difficulties of deciding.  I knew I wanted a pale ale but didn’t care for the recipes I’ve seen, and I wanted to use my Liberty hops.  So, I made my own recipe for a pale ale, plus I decided on doing a hefeweizen ala Widmer style.  But, none of the pseudo Widmer clone recipes I cared for, so I made my own, since I wanted to use Liberty hops in that as well.

So, here are my recipes:

Brett’s Liberty Pale Ale (6 gallon batch):

7 lbs light malt extract syrup
1 lb British crystal malt (40 l)
.5 lbs Munich malt
.75 oz Centennial Hops (60 min-bittering)
.5 oz Liberty hops (15 min left- flavor)
.5 oz Liberty hops (5 min – aroma)
Safale US-05 yeast

Brett’s Half A Weizen (5 gallon batch):

7 lbs wheat extract syrup (60 wheat/40 malt ratio- thanks, Steinbarts!)
1 lb white wheat malt
.5 lbs Munich malt
1.5 oz Liberty hops (60 min – bittering)
.5 oz Liberty hops (5 min – aroma)
Safale WB-06 yeast

Doing both batches at the same time went well, especially since I had two helpers, Jeremy and Mike, both of whom thoroughly enjoy my home brew, and Mike in particular is displaying interest in doing it himself.

We mashed the grains in about 1/2 gallon of water at 150 degrees for 35 minutes (at one point we got to talking and the temp spiked on both, so we quickly added a bit more water to bring the temp down quickly).  We sparged the poor lazy man’s way, since there weren’t enough grains in the pots to justify dirtying my lauder tun.  Then we added more water, added 1/2 the malt extract syrups, our bittering hops, and away we went.  Once both batches had 15 minutes left we added the rest of the malt, and I nearly burned myself when the malt bucket handle broke and dropped into the pale ale.  Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt badly by the water splashing on my foot.  Also added the flavor hops to the pale ale at this time.  With 5 minutes left, added the aroma hops on both.  Once the boil was done, removed the heat, strained the hop pellets out, and poured into the fermenters.

Tomorrow morning I will aerate both, take the gravity, and pitch the yeast.  Then, will need to come up with clever logo’s for the bottles.  I’m having a get together with a bunch of friends on the 29th, so hoping these beers are good and ready by then.

Update:  Initial gravity on the pale ale was 1.050.  Initial gravity on the hefeweizen was 1.060.  Both smell wonderful and taste pretty darn good as they are.  Going to be some fine beers!