Sarah has requested a wheat beer, so I’m going to try my hand at one of these next weekend (if everything arrives by then, that is). I’m basing my recipe around a clone of Bert Grant’s Hefeweizen, which from the description in my recipe book looks to have all of the characteristics that Sarah likes (citrusy, yeasty, wheaty). Unfortunately, my local homebrew store didn’t have any wheat malt. . .so, I placed my order with William’s Brewing, and it should all ship out tomorrow afternoon.
KPA Bottled
This evening, I bottled up the KPA. I siphoned it out of the carboy (everything had settled out nicely – there was relatively little sediment, and the beer looked very clear). For primer, I boiled 3/4 cup of corn sugar in 2 cups water, cooled the mix, and stirred it in to the beer. I got 37 12-ounce bottles and 4 16-ounce bottles, for a grand total of 41 bottles. Accounting for the pint bottles, this is a slightly higher bottle count than the last batch (which gave me 41 12-ounce bottles).
The beer has a nice amber color, and tastes pretty good so far (if one can trust flat beer). It’s a little darker than I was expecting, so maybe next time I’ll use only dry malt extract (which I’ve read can give a slightly lighter color). Now to wait for carbonation. . .
KPA Update
I just transferred the KPA to my secondary fermenter, to settle out a bit while I’m away for Christmas. Things looked A-OK in the primary, and the beer has a final gravity of 1.011. With my starting gravity of 1.041, this gives about 4 percent alcohol.
The beer has a very nice, dark golden hue, and a good hoppy aroma. The hops flavor is strong but smooth, so I think this will be a very good one once I get it carbonated. Now just to wait a few weeks. . .
KPA Bubbling Away
I just checked on the KPA I started yesterday. . .it’s brewing fine (as viewed from the outside of the bucket – there’s lots of krauesen that I can see when I shine a light through), but no bubbles are evident in the air lock (which is quite firmly in place). So, I’m pretty certain that the bucket lid isn’t entirely airtight, and a little carbon dioxide is escaping somewhere around the edges. Fortunately, this seems to be a pretty small deal in the grand scheme of home brewing, so I’m still not going to worry about it.
Kamikaze Pale Ale
This is the first time I’ve ever stepped free of the confines of a brewing kit, so I’ve called this recipe “Kamikaze Pale Ale,” or KPA for short. I started with the American pale ale in Charlie Papazian’s Complete Joy of Home Brewing (3rd Edition), and changed ingredients as I felt appropriate. Some of the ingredients were determined by what was available at the nearest home brew supply shop, but that’s half the fun! With the Cascade hops, I suppose it’s an American pale ale, but the Nottingham yeast probably puts it into the British category. We’ll see what it tastes like in the end!
I’m going to go into a fair bit of detail for this recipe, but I don’t expect to do quite as much in future posts.
Here are the basic ingredients:
1/2 pound pale ale crystal malt (at least, that’s what it said on the tub at the store)
6.6 pounds Bries CBW Golden Light Pure Malt Extract
3 oz. whole Cascade hops from South Dakota (2 oz. for the full boil, 1 oz. for the finish)
11 g active dry Nottingham brewing yeast (Danstar brand)
Here’s what I did:
- I steeped the crystal malt (all wrapped up in a cheesecloth sack) in two gallons of water, heated to 160 degrees, for 30 minutes.
- I removed the crystal malt, let it drip out a bit, and discarded it. Then, I heated the whole mixture to a boil.
- I added all of the liquid malt extract and the hops (again, enclosed in a cheesecloth bag), and then boiled the whole mixture for 60 minutes. Two minutes before the end, I added the finishing hops.
- I cooled the whole mess in the sink – it took about 15 minutes to get it down to a reasonable temperature. Then, I poured it into the primary fermenter and topped it up to five gallons with cold tap water (with one gallon of Target’s purified water in the mix – it was sitting in the house, so I thought I’d get rid of it).
- Finally, I sprinkled the contents of the yeast packet across the top of the whole thing, and sealed it up.
- I put the fermenter in the closet, where it’s a happy 70 degrees. Now, I’ll just wait until next weekend, when I’ll siphon it into the secondary (a glass carboy – newly acquired as of last weekend) and let it sit over the Christmas break.
Other odds and ends:
For this recipe, I decided to try crushing the crystal malt at home. Easier said than done. In the end, I crushed a quarter pound at a time in two gallon freezer bags (one inside the other) by rolling over the grains with a large beer bottle. The grains ended up a little more floured than I might have liked, so we’ll see if/how this affects the end result.
My starting gravity is 1.041. A little lighter than I might like, but we’ll see how it turns out. If I were to do it again, I’d probably only top it up to 4.5 gallons (although interestingly enough, I didn’t have any loss due to boiling over this time).
I sampled a bit of the wort – it’s very hoppy and quite sweet (as I’d expect on both counts). I think this is going to be a good one!
