Reformation Day Pumpkin Ale

Halloween's coming up...I mean Harvest Day...I mean Reformation Day and Emilie has requested a pumpkin ale. Being the super masculine, ridiculously awesome, provider type I obliged. I'm bottling this half batch because Emilie never really drinks the beers she requests and I don't think I like pumpkins interfering with my beer. We'll see.

Ingredients:
Fermentables:
5 lbs GW 2-row
0.5 lbs GW crystal 60
0.5 lbs Briess Special Roast
1 medium sized pumpkin cooked at 400 for 60 minutes mashed in

Hops:
0.5 oz Hallertau @60
0.5 oz Hallertau @5

Extras:
0.5 lbs Brown Sugar @20
3/4 Tbs pumpkin pie spice @20 (That Emilie made...I think it's allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg)
Yeast Nutrient @15
Whirfloc @15


Water:
2.5 gallons strike @163
Collected 1.5 gallons
2.5 gallons sparge @173
Collected 2.25 gallons

Yeast:
Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

Notes:
10-22-2011--Brewed in around 4 hours, but about 30 minutes too long (screaming kid and a wife that left). No recirculation due to the half batch. Gravity was around 1.050+ but the bubbles in the wort made it so I couldn't get an accurate reading.
10-29-2011--Bottled. Gravity down to 1.010.

Hop in the Dark

Ingredients-

Grain:
20 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
4 lbs Munich Malt
2 lbs 8 oz Flaked Oats
12 oz Crystal 120L
8 oz Chocolate Malt
8 oz Chocolate Wheat
4 oz Black Barley
10 oz Dark Belgian Candy

Hops: (all whole hops unless otherwise noted)
4 oz Nugget @ 60 (pellet)
2 oz Northern Brewer @ 60
2 oz Centennial @ 30
2 oz Cascade @ 15
2 oz Simcoe @ 1

Yeast:
Safale 04




Water:
9 gallons of strike @163
Collected
8 gallons of strike @172
Collected 2 gallons off the top and recirculated for 15 minutes with the rest.

Notes:
10-15-2011--
Brewed with my new recirculating pump that I got at the ReShop and it worked really well. Brewed at double batch at Scott's and we split it. Ended at 1.065, I pitched the Safale 04 and Scott pitched 1056.
10-25-2011--Gravity's down to 1.014. Time to keg.
10-29-2011--Kegged

Rye Ale Redo

Back in July, Scott and I brewed a rye ale that was supposed to be 10 gallons of a rye IPA, but we forgot to double the hops from a 5 gallons recipe...anyhoo, I wasn't too fond of it and I didn't want it to sit in a keg forevs so I bottled 2 gallons of it and soured the other 2-3 gallons. I pitched a wyeast pack of 3278, Lambic Blend and I'm gonna sit on it for 4-6 months.
I tossed in the yeast around 2 weeks ago, so I'll start the notes then.

Notes:
9-30-2011--Pitched yeast
10-9-2011--Tons of lambic "spiders webs" yeasty beasties building up. I took a sample, not very sour yet.

10-29-2011--Bottled.

Fresno Lager

It's getting cold out side which means....lager time. I scored 10 lbs of cascade (my favorite hop) so I decided to dry hop the crap out of this lager. We'll see. I'm using a new (to me) yeast, California Lager, and I'm naming this one after my birthplace. I'm going to probably rack this a couple times to insure clarity.

Ingredients:

Grain:
12 lbs GW 2-row
0.75 lbs GW Crystal 60 (I meant to get 40, but I grabbed the wrong one)

Hops:
1.3 oz Nugget @60
1 oz Cascade @0
5 oz Cascade Dry Hopped in fermenter for 14-21 days

Water:
4 gallons strike @165
Collected just over 2 gallons
4 gallons sparge--2 for 10 minutes and dumped into the kettle, 2 recirculated for 15ish minutes.
Collected another 3.75 gallons

Yeast:
Wyeast California Lager 2112

Extra:
Yeast Nutrient @ 15

Notes:

10-8-2011--Built a new sparge system (see pic) and it worked great! I also picked up another pump at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $3.75! It can handle liquid up to 190* so I'm going to use it for the recirculated and my Chugger for cooling. Ended up with about 4.75 gallons of 1.062 wort.

$9 Ale

I haven't brewed since the big 50 gallon brew weekend because I haven't had any kegs open. I'm calling this $9 ale because I used my home grown hops. I'm not really sure how hoppy it's going to be--they say wet hops are 5 times heavier then dried. I tried to dry them, but it didn't work very well. By the way, Poor Blend are the hops that, when I was trying to dry them, blew all over my yard. Anyhoo...here it is.

Ingredients:
Grain:
12 lbs GW 2-row
1 lbs GW Crystal 80
1 lbs GW Munich
1 lbs Briess Red Wheat

Hops:
2.5 oz  (semi-wet) Poor Blend @60
5 oz (semi-wet) Cascade @15
5 oz (semi-wet) Brewer's Gold @0

Extras:
Cap full of yeast nutrient @0

Water:
4 gallons of strike @ 165--> 158-->153
Collected 3.25 gallons
4 gallons of sparge @172
Collected 1 gallon off the top
Recirculated the rest for 10 minutes
Collected just under 3 gallons

Yeast:
Wyeast 1968 London ESB

Notes:
10-1-2011--Pretty aggressive boil since I stated with 7 and a quarter gallons, still ended with over 5.5 gallons. Good brew day. I need to nail down my re-circulation process. Right now it's pretty janky and takes a lot of my attention. I'm going to try and get some quick disconnects, but they're kinda spendy.
10-4-2011--Krausen explosion!