I had the pleasure of brewing with my brothers-in-law Drew and Dan in the pleasant town of Thornhurst, on August 11th. They are quite interested in the notion of homebrewing, and after Drew participated in Batch 20, he felt empowered and compelled to follow up with some more experimentation! They will name their line of alcoholic beverages SlotterBrew. A worthy moniker! To start, he secured a burner, a 15G pot (for cheap on Amazon.com, shameless plug for Drew), and two glass carboys. While we were visiting (the trip was really meant to get our son to interface with his uncles some more before our daughter was born, but hey, this is a beer blog!), Drew and Dan helped cut holes in copper pipe for a manifold for Shoshin Brewing, thanks for the hand, guys!
The parameters for the beer were: an ale, not a porter or stout, and high gravity. Given the name, I tried to keep with thematic ingredients, yielding a mash and hop schedule with names such as Liberty, Victory, and Magnum 🙂 We came up with this recipe, based on some of my previous experience:
Recipe Type:Â All Grain
Yeast:Â WLP001
Yeast Starter:Â 2L starter from DME and one vial of WLP001
Batch Size (Gallons):Â 10
Original Gravity: 1.088
Final Gravity: 1.012 (~10% ABV)
IBU: 44?
Boiling Time (Minutes):Â 60
Color: 8ish
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
25# 2-row
3# Crystal 10L
2# Victory Malt
1# Rye Malt
2oz Magnum at 60 minutes
1oz Liberty at 30 minutes
1oz Liberty at 15 minutes
1 Campden tablet in the water before mashing and sparging
1 Whirlfloc tablet at 15 minutes
Mash for 60 minutes with ~10 gallons of water, target of 150 degrees, at 1.25 qt/#, and sparge with ~6 gallons of water with a sparge target of 170*
I took notes of the adventure in my iPhone, but sadly, they disappeared (damn you, Steve Jobs!). What I can recall is that we had a blast, and the beer probably will be awesome. It is with great sadness that I remind all homebrewers to hug their pets, and keep them away from hops. Drew and Dan had an amazing friend Simon who, some time after our brewing session, must have eaten some hop refuse from the brewing day, and he passed away a few days later. This was a great loss for many, but he will be remembered fondly, and will forever be remembered in our homebrewing efforts.
8/29/13 – over the past few weeks, Dan and Drew have noticed variable activity and clarity in their carboys. The temperature has likely varied an awful lot in the basement where the carboys are stored, and it is likely the yeast have gone dormant and woken back up a few times. I advised them to measure gravity and track the progress of fermentation. We Shall See.
9/7/13 – this past week, Dan and Drew have been complete heroes in caring for Zachary as we welcomed the arrival of Lillian. Thank you for your awesomeness. While Drew was here, he picked up some American Flag bottle caps for ‘Murica!! neat 🙂
9/8/13 – Drew and Dan Bottled, 2.5 gal into a party pig, and 70 bottles. Not bad!
5/22/17 – this was a legendary beer, and it needs to be brewed again.