McCarthy's Irish Red Brew Session

This is an Irish red recipe from "Brewing Classic Styles". Overall it was a nice brew day. It was so smooth that I completely forgot to take the SG reading before I pitched the yeast packs. Oh well, we can't win em' all! It smelled exactly like Smithwicks. It should turn out quite nice. efficiency was estimated around 70%.

McCarthy's Irish Red Ale
11.25 Crisp marris Otter
6 oz. crystal 40
6 oz. chocolate
6 oz. roasted barley
2 pks wyeast irish ale
irish moss
2.25 oz goldings (5% A.A.) 60 min

KITCHEN SINK KOLSCH STYLE BEER

As soon as I got back from mexico I had to brew. I had two packs of kolsch yeast so I thought that a nice, light kolschy ale would be great choice! After brushing up on my batch sparging technique I was excited to see how the next sesssion would progress. The problem was, my local homebrew shop gets cleaned out over the weekend and its slim pickins' come monday. So only 3 lbs of continental pils malt. I would have to make up the rest with the canadian 2-row. Here's the recipe.

Kitchen Sink Kolschy Style Ale

6 lbs Canadian 2-row
2 lbs Begian pils
1 lb German pils
1 lb Munich
1/2 lb wheat
1.5 oz Hallertau Herbsbruck 4.2%AA (60min)
1 tsp Irish Moss (15min)
2 packs Wyeast 2565 Kolsch

Mashed with a ratio of 1.3 qts per lb of grain. single infusion at 152 degrees for 90 min. Added a gallon of near boiling water to mash out, and sparged with 3.75 gallons. I got a pre boil SG of 1.039 at 6.6 gallons, and an OG of 1.050 at the end of the 75 min boil. I pitched at 60 degrees and stuck the carboy in a chiller tank. Krausen formed in under 8 hrs. I tried to keep it around 60 as best I could, but it was hard. I temped the chiller water at 63 a couple times the first 3 days. once I temped it at 65 on the 5th day. On the sixth day I let it ramp up as the krausen started to fall. the temp settled at 67. I will Carb to 2.5 Volumes, and lager for 4 weeks in the fridge.

BREWERY NEWS

Well November flew buy fast! We were able to make two beers before we left for vacation. An all Centennial hopped American Pale Ale, and a Russian Imperial Stout. The lesson from these brews were 1. make a hop sack for the brew kettle, and 2. read Denny's Cheap 'n' Easy Batch Sparge page . I thought I read it, but turns out I missed the part about both runoffs being equal for optimum efficiency. The methods we have been using are designed for a different system and brewing technique, such as fly sparging. So as soon as I got back from vacation I brewed a Kolsch, and it worked out great. Really smooth session! I also was able to control the boil off rate so I wasn't boiling off too much wort, The runoffs were pretty close to equal, and the efficiency turned out to be 76%. Not bad, seeing as the recipe was designed for 70%.

Here are a few shots of my brew partner bottling his R.I.S. Unfortunately we ran off way too much wort into the kettle and diluted our pre-boil gravity. we collected 9 gallons at the start of the boil. we boiled hard for 90 min. and wound up with 6 1/2 gallons at the end. At bottling it tasted very close to the commercial example. It was getting late so we opted not to boil longer to reduce the wort down, instead we accepted the lesson of "watch your runoff amount".

Here is the recipe for the Imperial Stout, it is based on an Old Rasputin clone.

15 lb Canadian 2-row
12 oz Chocolate malt
8 oz Black Patent
18 oz Crystal 80
8 oz Victory
2.12 oz Cluster at 7%AA (60min)
1/2 oz Centennial (15min)
1/2 oz Northern Brewer (15min)
1 oz Liberty (2min)
3 pks Wyeast 1056