Best Bitter... with a twist

2009 Batch #8 - Cascade Bitter
(brewed 10/10)

The Boulder Woods Fighting Llamas tag finale is on November 14th, and since my Llama Brew was such an apparent hit last year, I figured I would give it another shot. I brewed an Ordinary Bitter for the occasion last year and decided to up the ante a bit to a Best Bitter this year... but with a twist.

The twist was minor - but it should be tasty. Instead of the traditional East Kent Goldings I went with all Cascade on this one. Courtesy of Ryan, the Cascades were of the 5.7% AA, whole leaf, variety. It should add a nice American touch to a typically British style beer.

Here is the recipe I rolled with:

8.5 lbs.	Maris Otter Pale info
.5 lbs.	Crystal Malt 60°L info
1 oz.	Cascade (Whole, 5.7 %AA) boiled 60 min. info
.5 oz.	Cascade (Whole, 5.7 %AA) boiled 30 min. info
.5 oz.	Cascade (Whole, 5.7 %AA) boiled 1 min. info
Yeast :	Fermentis S-04 Safale S-04 info

Mash Schedule * 153° F for 45 minutes * 170° F for 10 minutes

I was not really planning on brewing this one today, but one thing lead to another and it was such a nice day, next thing I knew it was 2:30pm and I was on my deck heating my strike water. I came pretty darn close to nailing my OG, and wrapped things up my about 6pm. Good times.

click here for pictures

Harrrrvest Ale

2009 Batch #7 - Harrrvest Ale
(brewed 09/13)



Yeah, since I stumbled upon a big score of fresh hops, I decided that a big beer was in order; 10 gallons of an ESB harvest ale it was.

But I've only got a 5 gallon set up - what to do? I guess I could have just split my sparges, and done a double boil. Deuane wasn't having any of that idea, as he insisted that his keggle was available for the borrowing. Not only did he let me borrow it, but he also delivered it to my house! So, yeah - 10 gallon brew day was on! Ryan came over to brew 5 gallons of Hefeweizen, and off we went.

Recipe is as follows:

14.5 lbs.	Maris Otter Pale info
4 lbs.	German Vienna info
.5 lbs.	Crystal Malt 10°L info
.75 lbs.	Belgian Cara-Pils info
.5 lbs.	Belgian Biscuit info
1 oz.	Willamette (Pellets) boiled 60 min. info
.5 oz.	Mt. Hood (Pellets) boiled 60 min. info
2.5 oz.	Nugget/Cascade (Wet) boiled 30 min. info
5 oz.	Nugget/Cascade (Wet) boiled 10 min. info
5 oz.	Nugget/Cascade (Wet) boiled 5 min. info
5 oz.	Nugget/Cascade (Wet) boiled 2 min. info
6 oz.	Nugget/Cascade (Wet) boiled 0 min. info
2 oz.	Cascade (Dry) used as dry hop. info
Yeast :	Fermentis S-04 Safale S-04 info

Ryan and I had to get creative at the last minute with the bittering hops - we did not realize until I was about to start the boil, that we, uhh... didn't have any. Opps. Ryan had some Centennials at home that he was going to bring with him, but they never made the trip. No worries though, I had an ounce of Willamette in the fridge, and Ryan had an extra half ounce of Mt. Hood with him. Style guidelines be damned - I am not a fan of them anyway. I also dry hopped with an ounce of Ryan's HopsDirect cascades in each secondary (2oz total).

So, I hit my mash temps which was either a fluke, or the result of me finally procuring a digitial thermometer. Either way, I'll take it. Things seemed to go generally well with the mash, I wound up sparging 3 times because the volume of water needed was more than my mash tun could handle.

OG was 1.046 (77º) and fermentation rolled along nicely, and I wound up racking both primaries to secondaries on Wednesday the 23rd. SG @ racking was 1.010 (73º). Good times.

Big thanks to Ryan for all the help with this one, and of course Deuane for all the hoppy goodness. I'm really looking forward to trying this one out!

Anyway here are way more photos than anyone wants to see:
Jay's photos
Ryan's Photos

P.S. Hi Jet!!

Oh my!

Look what Deuane hooked me up with - no wonder the internet loves him!

~3.5 lbs of freshly picked Nugget and Cascade hops - quite a nice 3rd year harvest!


Coming soon: 2009 Batch #7 - Harvest Ale

It is going to be awesome!