Dave's Home Brew IPA

After a long brewing hiatus I finally was able to brew a batch tonight!  Wifey made a nice brewing corner in the kitchen for all the gear and we're back in business.  At least for the near term.

I had bought a kit some time ago from a local brew house in Sydney - Dave's Home Brew but never had the gear or time to brew it.  Until tonight.

The ingredients were mostly familiar and the process generally the same, though I modified the instructions a bit.  The grain was Torrified Wheat.  Bag A had 500g of dry malt extract with what looked to be target hops added to the extract.  The Yeast was Safale S-04, bittering hops were East Kent Golding hops and there was a Goldings hop bag.  

Ingredients in the kit

 I mentioned the instructions didn't look right so I modified them slightly.  Game plan was....

1) Bring 3 gallons water to 158 (70) to steep grains
2) steep grains for 20 minutes
3) after grains then add 2 malt extracts, bag A, bag 2 of hops, bring to boil
4) boil for 45 minutes,
5) then add bag 1 hops
6) boil another 15 then stop...
7) cool down  to 80 F
8) add yeast and then get it into the primary.

And for the most part I did... some photos.

Grain bag in the steep

Nice large grain bag

How awesome is that - grain bag properly hanging from the cabinet!

Post grains and mid boil... going good

So through the boil everything was going good.  No dramas.  Like riding a bike.  After the boil was done then I moved into the laundry room to bring the brew down in temps.  It didn't go as quickly as Cocoa Beach simply b/c I didn't have ice.  If I had ice and a drain plug it would have gone about the same.

Eventually the temps came down and it was time to transfer it to the carboy.  Though because I didn't have a good funnel I ended up having to auto-siphon it.  That worked until about the end when it clogged with the hops, then I had to transfer it using other ways... which made an absolute mess.  Oh well.

End result is a OG of 1.060 (and I think it's actually higher than this because when I transferred to the hydrometer some water also transferred).

OG of Dave's Pale Ale - 1.060(+)

For future reference...

Timeline
7:50 fill - 7 carafe = 49 cups
8:01 start
816 = 60C
826 = 72C
826 = start steep (awesome setup with grain bag from above)
856 = bring to boil 75
902 = 90
906 = boil
910 = bag 2 added
950 = bag 1 added
953 = finishing hops activated in boiling water - these hops smell good.... others didn't at all
1000 = off heat
1002 = back on
1006 = Removed from heat, cool-down begin
1009 = 85
1014 = 65
1019 = 54
1024 = 44
1029 - 37
1034 - 32
1039 - 28
1042: begin autosiphon
1055: pitch yeast
1100 shake it
1108 airlock
1111 beer brewed
1200 midnight, cleanup done

Brewing Drought

After moving to Australia and leaving all my brewing equipment to Drew (who is legally bound to protect my precious) looks like I'll be back in action!

Wifey has made a mini man-cove for me to contain all the brewing equipment.  Carboys, kettles, bottles, etc...!  This is huge and the beginning of a new empire.  :) 

Watch this space...