Here is the recipe for 6 gallons:
(mashed at 152F)
12.3 lb 2 row pale malt
1.0 lb white wheat malt
1.1 lb brown malt
0.7 lb chocolate malt (350l)
1.1 lb Crystal (40l)
0.85 oz of magnum pellets (14.4% AA) for 60 min
The brew session started right after my wife and I put our son Noah to bed. She brewed with me start to finish for the first time for one of my birthday presents. It was nice to have some helping hands and fun to share my hobby with her.
We ground all 16.2 lbs of malt by hand using my corona mill. It took awhile to grind but we had it done before the sparge water was ready. I have since purchased a 5 gallon bucket from Lowe's to keep crushed grain in, allowing me to complete this task during free time before brew day.
I calculated my water salt addition for the mash using Palmer's spreadsheet (www.howtobrew.com), but I cut the addition in half. I do this to avoid going overboard with my water adjustment. My brewing water is pretty good, and Tim Herzog at Flying Bison says they don't adjust their water at all.
The mash tun held temperature within a degree or so. We finished collecting our first runnings 75 minutes after mashing in. They were taken outside to the keggle and we got it fired up so that it could begin heating while we collected the second runnings. This saves time and we reached a boil 40 minutes after mashing was complete.
The boil went normally and I added hops at 60 minutes and irish moss (which I re hydrated ahead of time) at 15 minutes.
This is another no-chill brew, so at the completion of boiling I put a lid on the keggle, turned the burner off, and put it away in the garage to cool until the following evening.
The next day I rehydrated my yeast and went out to the garage with all my sanitized equipment to fill up my fermenter from the keggle. I got about 5.5 gal of wort with 0.75 gal of trub and hops left over in the bottom.
The yeast was pitched right away while the wort was at 57 degrees. I aerated by shaking the bucket until the airlock stopped bubbling backwards. Fermentation started a day later and slowly oozed gunk and yeast through the airlock bubbler for several days (even though I was using an ale pail). This is the most vigorous fermentation I have had. After 4 days I moved the fermenter upstairs to allow it to finish warmer. The initial stage of fermentation happened at 66F, (4 degrees warmer than ambient) and the second stage was at 70 - 72.
After one week in the primary fermenter the beer was transferred to my carboy and the medium toast American oak cubes were added. At this point fermentation still seems to be finishing up, though I did not take a gravity reading. To steam the cubes I placed 2oz of them in a pyrex measuring cup with a few ounces of water and cooked them in the microwave for 2 min. The smell was amazing, and I really hope they impart a similar character to the beer. It was tricky to spoon the cubes into the carboy. In the future a large funnel would be nice to just dump them in.
After 1 month of aging with the oak cubes I bottled 51 bottles of my oaky new brew with 4oz of granulated sugar (on Jan 1st). I have a bad cold, but from what I could tell it was great. Candi also tasted it and thought it was good, so I'm expecting the final carbonated beer to be excellent.
