Decembeer Ambeer

After class today, I brewed an amber ale.  Well, that's what I was shooting for.  I had several goals I wanted to accomplish with this last batch of the year.

• use my new wort chiller
• use a large amount of flavor and aroma hops
• use a Belgian yeast strain.

I started with 4 gallons of water in my brew pot and these two specialty grains:

• 1 .0 # crystal malt (40L)
• 0.5 # wheat flakes

After the wort came close to a boil, I strained out the grains and added the following at 4:10pm:

• 3.0 # amber DME
• 3.0 # light DME
• 1.0 oz. Columbus Whole Hops (13.0 AA)

In the last 15 minutes at 4:55pm I added:

• 1.0 oz. Columbus Whole Hops
• 1.5 tsp. Irish moss

In the last 10 minutes of the boil, at 5pm I added:

• 1.0 oz. Columbus Whole Hops

In the last 5 minutes of boil time, at 5:05pm I added:

• 1.0 oz. Fuggles Pellet Hops (3.5 AA)

In the final minute of boil, at 5:09pm I added:

• 1.0 oz. Columbus Whole Hops

I stuck the wort chiller into the brew pot and transferred brewpot to the sink.  I started the wort chiller and to my observation it took very little time to cool down the wort.  After it was cool, I removed the wort chiller and began the process of sparging out all those hops.  After removing half the hops, my strainer was full and I had nowhere to put the remaining hops so I trashed them.  After sparging the second half of the hopped wort I noted that the hops had absorbed quite a large amount of the liquid.  It was alarming how much liquid was absorbed, and how much tap water I had to sparge into the fermenter in order to fill it to the proper level.

Next time I may use a hop bag so I can squeeze out the water with sanitized hands.

After getting all the wort into the fermenter I looked at the temp and it was 76 degrees, so I pitched the yeast immediately.  The yeast I used was:

• White Labs WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale Yeast

I cleaned up and the entire process took me approximately 2.5 hours.  I also did some video this time and should have that uploaded to Youtube in the near future.

In a couple days after primary fermentation (estimate 12/11 or 12/12), I'm gonna add:

• 1 oz. of Spalt hop pellets.

A couple days before bottling (estimate 12/25 or 12/26), I'm gonna add:

• 1 oz. of Spalt hop pellets.

Belboh Hybrid Ale...first tasting

I tried a bottle of the Belboh last night.  It was pretty good.  Its still a bit hazy and needs to condition some more, but it should finish up nicely!

I may be brewing an amber in a couple days.  I am dying to try out the new wort chiller!

I couldn't really think up a great label for this beer because it's style is kinda strange, so I just picked some graphics and winged it.  Like I did with the brewing of this beer!

For that person who's expressed disappointment that this blog is all about me, my family, my life, and what I'm doing, please feel more than free to not visit.  I'm not holding a gun to your head.  We don't want you here anyway. Hahahahahaha!!!

Straight No Chaser - 12 Days (original from 1998)

Merry Christmas everyone!!!