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Linux and Beer Brews

This tastes really good. I am happy with this recipe. If I were to change anything I would mash the grain at 152-3 for 45 Minutes, then mashout at 168 for 20 minutes. I would also use Cascade Hops for every addition. I used some Chinook and Liberty hops in this one because I wanted to use some of my home grown hops.

I bottled the APA today. I targeted 2.7 Vols of CO2 for carbonation. With a beer temperature during bottling of 69F, I calculated that I would need to 5.5 ounces of corn sugar for 5 gallons of beer. The priming solution was made with 2 cups of water plus the corn sugar. The sugar and water was boiled for 10 minutes, then cooled in an ice bath down to 60F. FG of the beer was 1.005@78F (1.007 corrected) before the priming solution was added. ABV is calculated at 6.1%. Yield was was 54 Bottles.

Fermentation on this batch has slowed considerably. What is interesting is that the krausen seems to have fallen, but there is still a layer of foam on the top of the beer in the carboy. The foam looks yeasty. It may be because this batch is all grain, or it could be the Safale US-05 yeast. Either way it looks different than my previous batches of beer. I will try to remove the blow off tube and attach the airlock to the carboy today if I find the time.

The beer is currently bubbling away. The fermentation is not violent (pushing foam from the airlock), but it looks healthy.

Mash
17.00 lb Pale Ale Malt 2-Row
0.75 lb Wheat, Flaked
0.45 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 60L
0.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 120L
0.14 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 20L

Boil
2.00 oz Cascade [6.00%] (75 min)
1.00 oz Cascade [6.00%] (15 min)
0.50 oz Chinook [7.00%] (10 min)
2.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (10 min)
0.50 oz Chinook [7.00%] (5 min)
0.10 oz Liberty [2.50%] (0 min)

1 Pkgs American Ale (Safale US-05) Yeast

Water used was half tap water and half distilled water. Initial Mashin was with 24 quarts of water at 165F. Mash settled at 153 F. Total mash time was 90 minutes. Ending mash temp was 151 F. A 10 gallon Igloo cooler was used for a mash tun. I was estimating 15 quarts of water absorbed by grains and First runnings estimated at 9 quarts. Actual absorption was a little lower at about 10 quarts of water absorbed by the grain and with first runnings around 14 quarts. .53 quarts/lb grain absorption. First sparge was with 22 quarts of water @ 170 F and second sparge is with 22 quarts of water @ 170 F. Total volume collected for boil was a little over 14 gallons.

I split the boil bewteen two kettles for 30 mins and recombined them after they had a chance to boil off a couple of gallons. I used a fan blowing on the kettles to allow me to keep the heat high and quickly evaporate a couple of gallons. After recombining in the main kettle and bringing to a boil I added the hops as noted above. I used an immersible wort chiller to cool the wort down to 78F and sparged into carboy. I had issues sparging into the carboy using a stainless steel racking cane and copper mesh to filter the hops. and ended up dumping about half a gallon on the driveway (Don’t ask). I ended up using a sanitized pyrex pot to ladle the wort from the kettle into the carboy. I used a funnel with a screen to filter out any solids. I only filled one 6.5 gallon carboy as it became too difficult and time consuming to filter out an increasing amount of trub and hop leaves. I dumped the remaining 3-4 gallons of wort (Sacrificed to the beer gods).

I let the wort settle for 2 hours then siphoned it into another carboy (leaving behind a bunch of trub). I wish my brewing day had gone smoother, but At least I got something for my efforts. I pitched a packet of Safale US-05 yeast and put the carboy to bed in the fermentation freezer @ 64 F

SG was [email protected] (1.054 Corrected)