Thursday, May 24, 2007

My newest version of beer

What I really love about brewing is the independence on has over the ingredients in a batch. Sure, if I was to try to make a certain style, there are specific guidelines that I must meet.

However, I'm not brewing beer to be judged within the confines of a category (maybe someday, but not today). My only constraints are what ingredients I have in my Sterilite storage bin.

Today I brewed using two criteria:

1) I could only use what I had on hand
2) I had to use ALL of the specific ingredient I had on hand (except for my Cascade hops. I have about .75 pounds)

My biggest problem was the hops I had available. I had 0.4 oz of Target (10.0% AA), 0.55 oz Tettnang (4.3% AA) and a copious amount of Cascade hops (5.8% AA) I wanted to hit a bitterness of 40±5 IBU. So, I used a number of IBU calculators on the internet, but they all gave conflicting values. I need to look into this more deeply and understand my IBUs better.

Here is my recipe (I'm not sure what I made, but I bet it will be better than Bud Light):

4 oz flaked barley
8 oz Munich malt
8 oz Carapils
14 oz Crystal Malt (50-60°L)
3 lb Amber DME
3 lb Light DME
0.4 oz Target hop pellets (bittering, 60 minutes)
0.25 oz Cascade hop pellets (bittering, 60 minutes)
0.44 Tettnang hop pellets (aroma, 15 minutes)
0.5 oz Cascade hop pellets (aroma, 2 minutes)
Safale US-56 dry yeast

The barley, munich, carapils and crystal malt were mashed at 150°F for 60 minutes in 2.5 quarts of water. The liquid was strained through a plastic colander lined with a muslin bag. The grains were sparged with 1 gallon of water at 170°F. To the liquid the DME was added. The volume was increased to 3 gallons. The wort was brought to a boil and the Target and Cascade hops were added. With 15 minutes left, the Tettnang hops were added and finally the Cascade was added with 2 minutes left. The wort was cooled and diluted to 5 gallons. The dry yeast was added directly.

Only time will tell what I have made and if it is good.

5 comments:

MJenks said...

Five bucks says you could drink that, piss it out, stand over it and yell "hops" and have something better than Bud Light.

Chemgeek said...

Uh oh!!!! I think the folks at AB are going to be pissed that you discovered the secret recipe for Bud Light.

Expect a visit from a really tall and really pissed off horse!!!!!

MJenks said...

Is that horse's name "Clyde"?

Anonymous said...

Ha Ha, "Clyde" has special meaning for chemgeek - sounds like a good topic for a blog post!!

Chemgeek said...

elder-

Shouldn't you be working?