Friday afternoon I decided I was going to make some beer. So, I grabbed the kids, threw them in the van and headed off to Steinbarts. On the way, I began to ponder what beer I would make. Hmmm….. I was tempted to redo my standard hefeweizen (i.e. my half-a-weizen), but I began to think about what I wanted to drink right there and then, and I decided I wanted a pale ale. Now, my Liberty Pale ale was quite exceptional, but I didn’t have the recipe in front of me. Aww, who cares, right? This is beer, not rocket science. So at the beer store I grabbed 7 lbs of light malt extract syrup and 1 lb of 20 lovibond crystal malt. I also grabbed some Safale US-05, and a new beer magazine and a new spigot for my bottling bucket. It seems my lazy man method of cleaning the spigot has resulted in a few funky batches.
Armed with my ingredients, only slightly different from my original Liberty recipe, I began my brewing on a beautiful Saturday morning (September 25th to be exact.)
Mashed the crystal malt for 45 minutes at 145 degrees, strained and sparged them using the lazy man’s method (particularly effective with small amounts of grain.) I then added more water, brought it to a boil and added my malt extract. Using my hops bag, I stuck with the original hop schedule as my original Liberty Pale Ale (.75 oz Centennials for 60 minutes, .5 oz Liberty for 15 minutes, .5 oz Liberty for 5 minutes.) I also used some Irish Moss to help settle anything out I don’t want in.
All went well for the boil. I transferred the wort to my fermenter and topped it off to 5.5 gallons (I thought it was at 5 gallons, but I had the bucket at an angle.) Aerated and pitched the yeast today, getting an initial gravity of 1.052. Should be ready to bottle by Friday, so I’m hoping. Talking to my boss about making a Belgian Dubbel next weekend.
Who Said What?