Brew Day (7/16/16)
Ingredients
Amt |
Name |
Type |
# |
%/IBU |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.00 tbsp | PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 60.0 mins) | Water Agent | 1 | – |
| 7 lbs | Pale Malt, 2-Row (Rahr) (1.8 SRM) | Grain | 2 | 87.5 % |
| 12.0 oz | Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) | Grain | 3 | 9.4 % |
| 4.0 oz | Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) | Grain | 4 | 3.1 % |
| 1.00 oz | Cluster [7.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min | Hop | 5 | 29.7 IBUs |
| 1 tsp | Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 mins) | Fining | 6 | – |
| 1.0 pkg | Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] | Yeast | 7 | – |
This is Northern Brewer’s Cream Ale recipe. Did not take very good notes on this one. Temps were a little low during 1 hour mash and the 10-minute mash out (about 145-146 instead of 150, and 160ish instead of 170F, respectively). We added quite a bit of adjustment water to try to get temps up. Don’t know how much or even how hot it was! But we got the temp up some during the mash. Fly sparged with 2.5 gallons of water.
Wort chiller ran about an hour to get down to low 70s. Septic overflow problems happened in the basement during this! (It didn’t get in the beer) Still a good time brewing with my brother-in-law.
OG: 1.046. Estimated OG from beersmith was 1.042, so we did pretty good…
It’s summer, so fermenting in the cool basement for the first time ever. First signs of airlock activity after about 2 hours.
Secondary (7/24/16)
Racked to secondary. No gravity reading taken.
Bottling (7/30/16)
Bottled after 6 days in secondary. Used 4.4 oz corn sugar in 2 cups boiling water. FG: 1.007 (5.1% ABV). Yielded 44 bottles. It’s clear as a bell and has a high quality taste!
Tastings (Aug-Sept 2016)
At first, after about 2 weeks in bottles, this beer was very good, but not “amazing”. After another couple of weeks, it’s complexity is coming out. It has a big, rich creamy head, and an amazing biscuity finish that is so delicious. I think this may be my favorite homebrew yet. It is not as clear as I thought it appeared to be in secondary. In a blind taste-test against Genessee with my co-brewer brother-in-law, this blew it away. Of course I had already drank our brew and knew which was which.
Tasting (9/14/16)
DAMN this is GOOD! Definitely to make again. Only a couple left.