A Tale of Two Triples

“I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoyed than be a success at something I hate.” George Burns Just in time for my latest brews, two triples, I've severely cut down on my drinking. In fact I'm getting tired of staring at the same brews in the refrigerator: a Rogue Porter, some assorted Sprechers, a few Avery IPA's and even a lone Bud, from the 2007 Superbowl Party when the Colts took the title during the rain in FL. But the sight for sore eyes hasn't bothered me enough to start drinking them, because after drinking so much for so long, when you stop and sober up for a minute its almost like being drunk it feels so odd. And I kind of like it. I'm trying to shave off a few pounds out of sheer laziness in not wanting to run the mini with a few extra pounds of flab flying along with me. In fact my wife is due a week after the mini marathon so it's a race between baby Boden and I to see who crosses the finish line first. We started with a recipe like this 30 lbs belgian pilsner 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 This was done in a kick-ass mash mobile that my brew bud Tim concocted for us. It is a 60 quart cooler with a copper tubing manifold on the bottom and a PVC T-shaped crossbar over the top the create an easy trickle into the mash tun. It was tricky because we lost several degrees while pouring the 175F water into the picnic cooler, which Tim explained as having more mass and therefore sucked more heat out of our water. So we ended up with a mash at about 148F. After the sparge we ended up with one 4.5 gallon batch of 1.090 gravity, to which I had added 1.5lbs of clear Belgian candy sugar. The other was pure wort and clocked in at 1.070. We pitched two packets of yeast in the high gravity: one a trappist yeast, and another belgian yeast so there was a mixed yeast population. This beer fermented down to 1.014 in 2 weeks after being racket after about the first week. The other beer is still bubbling away in the fermenter and we haven't checked the gravity yet. We did use a stainless steel aeration stone with an aquarium pump and inline filter for about 20 minutes to aerate the wort, which appears to have worked just fine and is a little less sloppy buy probably no more effective than sloshing at around with a siphon pump. So Saturday night I cracked one open to much delight. Not a ton of fruity overtones, but enough. The alcohol is warm but not in your face. It wasn't too dry either, which I'm not crazy about. I'll have to see what a little bottle conditioning will do for the batch. Stay tuned for the report on the 1.07! Cheers.

American Pale Ale

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en: In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew

The first concept of home brewing that I learned is to brew whatever you like. But having the power of homebrew at your disposal tempts you into the far-off realms of beer: the imperial stouts, strong belgian ales, barley-wines, and the like. Having the ability to brew such exotic ales can draw you away from the very foundation from which you started from, the very reasons that you got you into homebrewing. After brewing a Scottish wee-heavy clocking in at a good 6-7% alcohol and a Belgian Golden Ale at a good 8% I was ready to brew a Superbowl ale: Something that you could just pop open and enjoy, without having to put any thought to or have any explaining to do. I set out to test my beer on my grandmother, and decided that if she liked it, then I'd hit the mark. The picture is proof. Now that I think about it I realize that no grandmother is going to give her grandson a thumbs-down on a handmade beer, but overthinking can put an end to your hoppy daze. After drinking a few last night and not having to deal with a buzz while entertaining family it was a pleasure to chug down a few cool ones and maintain my composure while being refreshed by a nice pale ale. I was happy, my grandma was happy, so hoppy daze are here again. The recipe goes like this:

• 11 lbs 2-row pale ale malt
• 0.5 lb 5 or 10 lovibond crystal malt
• 1 tsp gypsum
• 1 1/2 oz Cascade hops (or to about 30 IBU) bittering
• 1 1/2 oz Cascade finishing hops
• 1/2 oz Cascade (dry hops)

Heat strike water to 170 degrees. Put water in lauter tun, add malt, and mash at about 152 degrees for about 40 mins. This temperature is ballpark. Closer to 140 will be a drier beer; hold at 158 or so for a sweeter beer (like a Scottish ale). You can adjust the temp with small amounts of hot water if needed, or you can just wrap an old blanket around it and leave it: stirring every 15 minutes or so. Test for starch conversion with iodine. Will be bluish color if starches still remain. An eye-dropper and a white coffee cup or measuring cup work perfectly. If you see blue, continue to mash. As you do this you'll learn to taste the mash and you'll know when it begins to taste sweet and feel a bit thinner. Spage with 3 or 4 gallons of 170 degree water, collecting 6 or so gallons of wort. Check the gravity of the runoff and stop collecting at about 1.010 SG. Boil 90 mins, with hop additions at 60 mins and 5 mins. Dry hop a half oz or so of cascade hops. This batch was brewed on a Saturday, bottled the next and Tuesday night 10 pm had a thick half inch of foam in the glass. Quick turnaround. I love these British Style pub ales. They inspire occasional bouts of logorrhea (laconic isn't in my vocabulary, check Webster if you need to). I can picture those British giants of literature sharpening their wit over a bitter or a pale ale. This is what got me into brewing.