Continue reading]]> Bottled my IPA and Pumpkin ale tonight. IPA final gravity was 1.014, and the Pumpkin final was 1.018, giving  me an alcohol percentage of 6.56 for the IPA and 8.75 for the  Pumpkin.

You  know, I don’t really trust my alcohol readings anymore.   Why is this so different from my others?

Oh, well. They still taste yummy.

I also forgot to mention that I ran out of corn sugar while bottling, so I had to substitute evaporated cane sugar juice, which will slightly affect the flavor.  I just hope it doesn’t affect the carbonation.

Continue reading]]> Gearing up for a beer tasting event next month, and my beer is the one going to be on the spot.  So, for the first two beers I’m making an IPA and a Pumpkin ale.  Here are the recipes.

God Is Good IPA

Preboil tea
3-1/2 gallons (17 L) water
1 pound 60L Crystal malt
2 pounds 2 row malt
7 pounds pale liquid malt extract
1-1/2 ounces Centennial hops (bittering) (60 min)
1 teaspoon Irish Moss
1/2 pound (225 g) light brown sugar
1 ounce Cascade hops (flavoring) (10 min)
1/2 ounce Cascade hops (aroma) (End of boil)
Yeast: Wyeast 1272
Dry Hop
1 ounce Cascade hops (Days 5-7)
Same IPA I just did, slightly modified.  Added some 2 row to boost maltiness, and added the brown sugar with the Irish Moss and the flavoring hops.

Used a grain bag for the grains and sparged the lazy man’s way with a kettle of hot water poured over the grain bag.

Grains in grain bag

Now, what I failed to mention is that I actually started the pumpkin ale first.  I’m putting the IPA first because it was easy.  The pumpkin ale was a lot more labor intensive.  This year I cheated and used canned pumpkin.  That didn’t speed things up a whole lot.  But, let me finish with the IPA before I begin the pumpkin tale.

So, after sparging I began my boil with my hops.  Added my flavor hops, Irish moss and my brown sugar with 10 minutes left in the boil, then added my aroma hops at the end.

Hops in my IPA

Once done I strained out all the hops and poured the beer into my fermenter, topping it off at 5 gallons.  It should be interesting to see how the brown sugar comes out as opposed to adding it in the secondary.

Pumpkin Ale:
Ingredients for 5 gallons
7 lbs extra light malt extract
2 lbs pilsener malt
1 lb 15L Crystal malt
7 ‐ 10 lbs whole pumpkin
2 oz Williamette whole hops (at 75‐90 minutes)
1/2 oz Cascade whole hops (at 75‐90 minutes)
1 oz Mt. Hood hops (at 0 minutes) (aroma)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 vanilla bean, chopped
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground dried ginger
1/4 tsp powdered Irish moss
2 packages of liquid ale yeast, or dry yeast, or an equivalent yeast starter

Cans of pumpkin waiting to become beer

Putting pumpkin in my mash

Now, I started this beer making process about 11am and didn’t fully finish with cleanup and all until 9pm.  I stopped for dinner, but other than that I was solid.

I did a protein rest with the grains at 122 degrees for 30 minutes.  Then I brought the temp up to 150 and added my pumpkin.  I let it sit there for 60 minutes mashing away.

Pumpkin in my mash

Once the mash was done I sparged it with about 3 gallons of water.  Now, sparging with pumpkin guts is interesting.  It doesn’t really sparge well.  It sits there dripping every so often.  It got stuck a few times too.  I had to break one of the cardinal rules of sparging and give it a bit of a stir every now and then.

Pumpkin in my lauder tun

It took forever to sparge.

Pumpkin and Grain guts

I had to boil it down as I was sure I had more liquid than 5 gallons.  After taking a break for dinner I got back to my wort and began to boil it again, as I had turned off the stove.  It boiled, I added my hops, let it go for 75 minutes, then added my spices.

Pumpkin Spices (and malt extract)

The vanilla bean was interesting.  I forgot how to deal with it, so I looked it up online.  For most applications, you want the insides of the bean.  Those are the vanilla seeds, and they look like a black paste.  The vanilla pod is not normally used, but can be for extract or other flavorings.  After reading up on it’s use, I gutted the vanilla bean, chopped it up and threw the whole thing in, seeds and all.  What the hay!

10 minutes later I added my aroma hops, which were supposed to be Willamette hops, but for some reason I left Steinbarts with Goldings.  I didn’t want to open a brand new bag of Goldings, so I used some Fuggles I had left over.  With my beer sufficiently hop aromaed, I strained all the hops and stuff out, poured it in my bucket, and topped it off to 5 gallons of water.  It seems my fear of too much liquid was unfounded, as I only had about 3 gallons in the bucket before topping off.

Tomorrow sometime I will aerate and pitch my yeast.

Edit:  9/4 and I took my gravity readings and pitched my yeast.  The initial gravity on the IPA was 1.064 and the Pumpkin ale was 1.074.  IPA was lower than last time.  Hmm….