Pumpkin Ale and Barleywine

We had a big day Saturday, dad and I hooked up his new two faucet tower on the kegerator and we brewed two different recipes. Here is a picture of the two beautiful brews on tap:

We were messing around with the CO2 pressure trying to find the sweet spot for both of them, finally got it after this picture was taken. The one on the left is the Reunion IPA we brewed at the beginning of August, it is literally one of the best beers I've ever tasted. The one on the right is the Elbro Nerkte recipe that I modified. It tastes a lot better than the last time, much sweeter. You gotta love a beer that's ready to drink after two weeks.

After we got that set up and had one (or two, of each) we got to brewing. The first batch was a Pumpkin Ale, here's a picture of the ingredients:

It was a pretty straightforward recipe, 1lb of the crushed crystal malt that we steeped, then added the 6.6lbs of the amber extract which boiled for the full 60 minutes. Also added 1.5 ozs of Fuggles for the entire 60 minutes. All the pumpkin goodies (2lbs of pumpkin, 1tsp of cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg, as well as 1oz of ginger) went in with 10 minutes left. When we added them all in it smelled like pumpkin pie, can't wait to see how it tastes.

The next step was a barleywine, I can't wait to try it, unfortunately it has to be in the secondary for 168 days! The brewing calendar has it ready to drink in March 2013, here's the ingredients:

This had a lot of hops as you can tell. It was also the first time I've brewed with the dry extract. I have to admit, I much prefer liquid extract. This one smelled good too, I don't know that I've ever tried a barleywine, but I'll post updates next year once we've tried it.

I've said it before, but now we need to build our own kegerator. Between the two beers on tap and three that are now fermenting, we'll need a better way to serve all the delicious brew we've been making. I think we're slowing down on the brewing for a while because of how much we have, but hopefully I'll be posting updates about how the keezer is coming along. I'm also going to try and duplicate the 'Maroon Effect' ale that a local brewery in Blacksburg makes for tailgating this season. 

Big Honkin' Stout

We brewed again on Monday, this time we made a stout. I have to admit while we were making it, the look was so dark it looked pretty close to molasses. I have high hopes for this one.

Here is a link to the recipe:
Big Honkin Stout - Northern Brewer

We didn't actually buy the kit from them, just got the same stuff from our local home brew shop. We have pretty detailed notes again, but we followed their steps exactly so there isn't much point in re-posting them. Here's a picture of the final ingredients:

Also worth noting is that we've started using the iBrewMaster app to find recipes and track our inventory/fermentation schedule. It's great and has a ton of good recipes on it. When we rack it to the secondary I'll post pictures so everyone can get a sense of the color. The one note I will add is that the original gravity was 1.068, so it has the potential for a healthy ABV as it'll spend a total of 6 weeks fermenting.

We're brewing again Saturday (I know dad caught the bug again, but I've definitely caught it, I'd brew every day if I could) and are planning on a Pumpkin Ale and a Barleywine (this one spends almost 190 days fermenting and ends up at a healthy 11ish% ABV!).

Given our current brewing habits and my new found love of home brewing, I think this is going to have to be our next project:
Prettiest Keezer Ever

I'm also going to start including our current beer on tap/fermenting/brewing status:
Brewing (September 1): Pumpkin Ale and Barleywine
On Draft: Elbro Nerkte Brown Ale
Carbonating: Reuinion IPA
Primary Fermentation: Big Honkin Stout
Secondary Fermentation: Elbro Nerkte Brown Ale - Modified

Dad and I kegged our I.P.A. on Saturday, here are some pics:

Siphoning

Into the Keg

Final Product

We took the final gravity reading, it was 1.02 so the final ABV is 5.26%. We also tasted pre-carbonation and it was so good. Smelled nice and hoppy and had a grapefruit aftertaste. We're going to let it carbonate for about 4 weeks so we'll post again after its done and give an update.

Alright, so dad and I brewed again on Tuesday, I'll try and post our updates sooner in the future.

Here is the original recipe that we based it off of:
Elbro Nerkte

Here are the deviations we made to the recipe:

1. We used approximately 8lbs of dark malt extract
2. We added 1/4lb of Caramunich
3. We added 0.5oz Cascade hops
4. We used a Whirlfloc tablet instead of Irish moss

Here is a picture of everything we used for the batch:

And we (I) did take some pretty good notes on the process, so here is a step by step of what we did:

1. Started the burner, we added 2 gallons to our 5 gallon pot
2. After ~10 minutes we added the steeping bag with the crystal malt, black patent malt, and caramunich
3. We steeped the bag for 30 minutes at 154 F
4. Brought the water up to a boil and added 3.3 lbs of the dark malt extract and 1.5oz of Fuggles
5. After ~15 minutes we added another 3.3 lbs of the dark malt extract
6. After ~15 minutes we added the final dark malt extract (a little less than half the can to bring the total up to about 8lbs) and 0.5oz Fuggles
7. After ~10 minutes we added the Whirlfloc tablet and 0.5oz of Cascade
8. Removed water from the boil pot and placed into our cooling setup with enough water added to bring volume up to 5 gallons (we have two immersion chillers, one set up in an ice bath to cool the water and the other in the primary fermenter to chill the wort)
9. Cooled down to somewhere between 76 F and 78 F

Before we added the yeast, we took the initial gravity reading and it was 1.06 almost on the dot. With the added extract and malt, we think the final gravity should be between 1.01 and 1.00 with a final A.B.V. of between 7 and 8%. We'll rack it to the secondary carboy after a week where it'll spend another week before kegging. I'll add another post with the final gravity reading and pre-kegging tasting notes (we're hoping for a little more chocolate taste than the last time).

We'll also be kegging the I.P.A. tomorrow, so I'll post a picture of the final color and some pre-kegging tasting notes. Sunday we should be making something new after we finalize the recipe so we'll have another update then.

Get to brewing!

Moving the blog over to a more Google+ friendly environment. We'll see if this works out better for the Heasly clan as we all have accounts anyway.