Big Sky Brewing Moose Drool Clone (from Jamil)

I'm not a big fan of brown ales. I used to really like New Castle and Moose Drool was one of my first favorite beers. I'm not that into Newkies any longer, but I still love me some Moose Drool. I got this recipe from Jamil of Brew Your Own. Only thing I changed was I substituted Tettnanger for Liberty since brewbrothers didn't have it. Most of this batch is for the Brawleys, but I'm going to keep 4 or 5 bottles worth.
Ingredients:
Grain (anticipated OG of 1.052)
10.8 lbs GW 2-Row
5.5 oz Maltextro Chocolate Malt
1.25 lbs GW Crystal 75-80ºL
0.5 oz Maltextro Black Malt


Hops: (21 IBU)
1.4 oz EKG whole leaf 60min
0.6 oz Willamette pellet 10 min (of the full pound given to me by my buddy Scott)
0.6 oz Tettnanger whole leaf 3 min (also from Scott)


Yeast:
Wyeast 1968 London ESB


Extra:
Whirfloc @20
Yeast Nutrient @20


Water:
4.7 gallons strike @170
Collected 3 gallons
4.7 gallons triple batch sparge @180
Collected 4.5 gallons


Notes:
4-23-2011--Boiled for 90 minutes and ended up with around 5.5 gallons of 1.053 wort. Strike water temp was too high. I've been doing that lately, I don't think I lose as much heat in transferring from my HLT to my MLT as I originally believed. I'm going to start striking at around 163 and see how that goes.
While brewing this sketchy dude saw what I was doign and rode his fixy up to my garage. Quite frequently I'll have neighbors or passers by come up and ask me what I'm doing, holler something from their car, or wave. This guy came up to my front door while we were eating dinner and I was mashing and proceeded to let me know that he has cornys for sale. He said he "gets" free from work and that he "gets" around 30 a month. Anyway, he wanted to sell them to me for $30 a pop and he said he had like 40 in his garage. I offered him some suuuuper low ball offer for all 40, but he declined. Oh well.
4-27-2011--Gravity down to 1.024.
5-3-2011--Had a pint the other day at Brawley's house. It's good. Smooth and brown ale-y. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of brown ales, but it's good.

Gargoyle Smoked Ale

I went to brewbrothers looking for a beer to make and after thumbing through a couple magazines and books for around an hour, I came across this one. The recipe calls for 8 different grains which usually means there wont be a distinctly recognizable flavor, but I'm hoping the smoked malt comes through really well.


Ingredients:
Grain:
11 lbs GW 2-row
1 lbs GW Crystal 75
1 lbs Briess CaraPils
1 lbs Weyermann Smoked Malt
1 lbs Briess Carmel Munich 60
1 lbs Castle Biscuit
0.25 lbs Castle Special B
0.25 lbs Baird's Roasted Barley


Hops:
2 oz Hallertauer @60
2 oz Hallertauer @2


Yeast:
Safale S-04 European Ale Yeast


Extras:
Whirfloc Tablet @10
Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @10


Water:
6.2 gallons @168
Collected 3.25
2.6 gallons (single) batch sparge @190
Collected 2.75


Notes:
4-8-2011--I forgot to do the double or triple batch sparge but I've been wanting to do a single to see if the extra batch sparges help at all. Pre boil gravity was 1.040 but I can't adjust it anymore because I melted my digital thermometer when Emilie and I made the belgian candi...I also don't know what the post boil gravity is because I forgot to take one. Oh well.
4-15-2011--Gravity down to 1.020. I wouldn't say there's a smokey taste more than nutty. Rich, full and deep amber color. We'll see how it tastes carbed.
4-22-2011--Still at 1.020, I'll keg this weekend.
4-23-2011--Kegged. I'm trying a new kegging procedure. I've always just hooked up the keg to my pouring PSI, which is 15, and waited the 3 weeks for it to fully carb. I was told you can fully carb a beer by rolling it around while under pressure. I rolled this around my garage for 5-10 minutes while I was brewing. We'll see. I'll check tomorrow.
5-19-2011--Had a pint last night. I like it; however, I don't pick up the smokiness as much as I would have hoped.

Last Chance Porter

I'm making this mostly for a friend and coworker, but I'm going to bottle 2.5 gallons for myself. I've tried to make two previous porters and I messed up so badly and they turned out to be so horrible, I ended up dumping down the drain. Anyways, if this one doesn't turn out well, I'm banning porters permanently. This recipe is loosly based on a Deschutes Black Butte Porter clone I found online. I upped and changed the grain bill, switched the yeast, and changed the hop bill

7.5 gallon batch
Ingredients:
Grain:
16.5 lbs Great Western 2row
1.5 lbs Maltextro Crystal 60
2 lbs Maltextro Dark Chocolate

Hops:
1/2 oz Nugget @60
1 oz Cascade @30
1 oz Hallertau @2

Water:
6.5 gallons @ 168
Collected 3 gallons
5.6 gallons @185
Collected 5.5 gallons

Yeast:
Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale

Extras:
Yeast Nutrient @2

Notes:
4-5-2011--I messed up the water calculations and ended up only getting 3 gallons. To make up for this, I upped the sparge water a gallon. I hit my temps and expected gravity (1.066) so I guess it was fine. Hop spider worked well.
4-8-2011--Gravity down to 1.026 I'll sit on it for another two days, bottle Sunday, and and most of it over on Monday. How sketchy is it to bring 5 gallons of bottled beer to a school to hand it off to another teacher?
4-9-2011--Bottled. I got twenty-four 22s for my buddy and twenty-four 12 ouncers plus a 22 for myself. I like it. Big roasty taste and nothing much else going on, a lot like Black Butte.
4-21-2011--Took the above picture. Hoppy aroma with roast. Big roasty foretaste with a hoppy finish. I'm not sure why it's so hoppy, maybe cut the bittering hop IBU in half next time. Pretty close to BBP but mine's probably more hoppy. I like it.
4-23-2011--Got this text from the buddy I brewed this for: "Paula (his girlfriend) says 'one of the best porters i've evr had, and i've had many.'" I guess they like it too.