Batch 6 - Exploding honey heather scottish ale

What better way to celebrate the USA than making a batch of Scottish Ale.

I brewed this up on July 4th and its been festering in my basement for the last three weeks. I had a heather ale and a peated ale in Scotland - both were really good beers. I decided to combine the heather and peat in this experimental brew. Here is the recipe I used -

Before I forget - the Porter (Batch 5) was incredible. It is the only beer I have brewed thus far that I would brew again and not change a thing. Better than Black Butte Porter - which is saying alot.

OK - for the mash - I used my same cooler mash tun system. In the meantime I brought 6.5 gallons of water to boil and added 2 tsp gypsum salt - then let it cool to 170.

Grain Bill

10 lb Marris Otter
1.5 lb Kilnamber malt
.6 lb peated malt

I mashed for 1 hr - stirring every 15 min - the water was 170 when I started the mash - which settled out to 162 after mixing it with the grain. That was a little hotter than I was hoping so I left the lid of the cooler cracked to try and cool things down.

After an hour I drained the wort into my boil pot and started to sparge. After I got 6.5 gallons - I started the boil. After the hot break - I added 1 tsp Irish Moss, .9 oz fuggles hops and .2 oz of tetnanger hops.

After 50 minutes, I added 1 oz of dried heather tips. After 55 minutes I added .5 oz tetnager hops and 1 gram of sweet gale. Finally after 60 minutes, I shut down the boil and added another oz of dried heather tips and 1 lb of honey.

Cooled to 75 degrees and took a gravity reading (1.060).

After 21 days in the basement - I think today is going to be bottling day. Stay tuned.

Batch #5 - Arctic Blast Porter

A big snowstorm was headed to Portland (or as the local news dubbed it, an "Arctic Blast"), so I decided to brew up a nice dark porter. This is my second all-grain batch and first porter.

First, I boiled 6.5 gallons of tap water and let it cool. The guy at the brew shop told me that Portland has very soft water - so I added 2 tsp of Gypsum salt to the water. Also heated up 3.5 gallons of sparge water.

Grain Bill

9 lbs American 2 Row
.5 lbs Caramel 80
.5 lbs Domestic Chocolate Malt 350L
1 lb Domestic Munich Malt 10L
.25 lb British Black Malt 500L

Once my water had cooled to 170, I mixed it into my cooler/mash tun with the grain. I gave it a stir every 15 minutes or so and it maintained 154 degrees for an hour.

Next I drained the wort into the boil pot and started sparging. I did the sparge a little different this time, trying to "sprinkle" the water onto the grains rather than pour it in. Once I had 6 gallons of wort - I started heating it up. After boil and hotbreak, I started adding hops -

Hop Schedule

.5 oz Amarillo 60 min
.25 oz Tettnanger
1/2 tsp Irish Moss

.5 oz Tettnanger 40 min

.5 oz Fuggles 10 min

.5 oz Fuggles knockout

After the boil - I chilled to 70 and poured into the fermenter. The gravity was 1.040 at 70 degrees. Not as I high as I had hoped, but not terrible.

I pitched the yeast (WY1028XL). And let it sit for the next 25 days.

After 14 days, the gravity was 1.022.

At bottling, the gravity had dropped to 1.010.

For bottling, I primed with 2.75 oz of a mixture of cane and corn sugar. The beer tasted amazing at bottling - by far the best one I've made. I can't wait to taste the finished product.

Yeild was 25 22oz bottles, 2 17 oz bottles and 1 12 oz bottle. According to the recipator - ABV is only about 4%. Next time I will try to get my mash tun efficiency up, which will bring up my original gravity and ABV.

Batch #4 - dryhopped and bottled

Last night I bottled the all grain ale. It smelled amazing and was by far the best tasting batch prior to bottling. The final gravity was 1.009.

I didn't update previously - but it was in the primary fermenter for 10 days. Then I transferred to a secondary fermenter and dry hopped with 1.5 oz of cascade hops. Gravity at transfer was about 1.014.

It stayed in the secondary for another 10 days before bottling. I added 1/2 cup of corn sugar at bottling. Yield was 21 22oz bottles and 6 12oz bottles.

Batch #3 - IPA - update

Its been awhile since the second IPA went into the bottles. Basically, I left it in the primary for a week. Then transferred to the secondary for 2 weeks and dryhopped with 2oz of amarillo. It came out at a final gravity of 1.020 Not quite as low as I wanted - probably should have stayed in the fermenter a bit longer. I bottled with 1/2 cup of sugar.

After a few weeks, I tasted. Its better than Batch #1 - but still has the off flavors.

Of the first three, Batch #2 - the wheat beer - was by far the best.

Next step......all grain.

Batch #3 - Second Try IPA

For my third batch, I'm going to try another India Pale Ale. I'm using the same recipe I did the first time with a few modifications.

Here is the recipe

6.6 lbs Unhopped Light Malt Syrup (Coopers brand)
1 lb Light Dry Malt Powder
1 lb 20L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb 40L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb Dextrin Malt
1/2 lb Victory Malt
4 oz Cascade Hops (6%)
2 oz Centennial Hops (9.5%)
1/2 tsp Irish Moss

Steeping the whole grain

After sanitizing everything I brought 2.5 gallons of tap water to 150 degrees, then I started steeping the cracked grains in a grain bag. After 30 minutes, I removed the bag, added 2.5 gallons of tap water and brought the water up to a rolling boil.

Boiling the wort

Once boiling, I turned off the heat, added one cup of extract syrup, and turned the heat back on. Next I added 2oz of cascade hops to the water. These hops will add bitterness to the beer.

After 15 minutes, I added 1/2 tsp of irish moss to the boil.

After boiling for 30 minutes, I added another 2oz of cascade hops to the boil.

After boiling for 50 minutes, I added 1oz of centennial hops to the boil and put the wort chiller in the kettle.

After 60 minutes, I turned off the heat. Then the last ounce of centennial hops get tossed in the kettle, along with the remaining extract syrup and powder. After waiting ten minutes for the late additions to pasteurize, I turned on the chiller.

The chiller took about 20 minutes to get the wort down to 80 degrees. I then poured the wort back and forth between the fermenter and the boiling pot in order to aerate. Finally, I pitched the yeast.

I almost forgot to take a hydrometer reading and when I did I don't think it was accurate - nevertheless, it came in at a whopping 1.080.

Into the closet for a week.

Batch #1 - IPA into the bottles

Our first batch has been dry hopping in the secondary fermenter for a week now and bubbling is down to once every five minutes or slower. It could probably stay in the secondary fermenter for another week - but I'm ready to get this batch into bottles and start a new batch.

First step, clean out the bottles.

Since brewing day, I've been working on cleaning out old bottles. Some of them had been sitting around for months and have never been cleaned, so the bottoms of some of the bottles look like used petri dishes. In other words, they were in need of a thorough cleaning. Here was my cleaning process, which was probably overkill:

1. Rinse the bottles with a carboy jet cleaner attached to a hose.

2. Soak the bottles in a bleach solution. I used two capfuls of Clorox per 5 gallons of water. Then let the soak for a week.

3. Rinse the bottles with a carboy jet cleaner. Scrub with a bottle brush. Then rinse again.

4. On bottling day, I soaked all of the bottles in an iodophor solution for 30 minutes to sanitize.

5. I don't know if this is necessary, but after sanitizing, I placed a sheet of plastic wrap over the tops of all the bottles to insure that nothing got in before bottling.

On to the bottling...

Bottling was pretty simple. First, we boiled 3/4 cup of corn sugar in two cups of water for ten minutes. Next, we siphoned the beer from the secondary fermenter into a sanitized 6.5 gallon plastic bottling bucket. After siphoning in a gallon, we poured in the sugar water and then finished siphoning. The sugar will carbonate the beer in the bottles.

We also took a specific gravity reading and a taste at this point. The specific gravity was 1.017. Oddly, it had gone up since the last reading, but that is probably due to an inaccurate reading last time. We also took a taste at this point. It was amazingly good despite being flat and warm. Good bitterness and a heavy hop aroma. I thought it tasted a bit too alcoholic (almost like a barleywine), but Josie didn't think so.

After siphoning into the bottling bucket, I attached the bottling stick and started filling up bottles. One important note here, if you close the top of the bottling bucket, the beer will flow extremely slow. It took me about a six pack to figure this out.

After the bottles were filled, Josie put the caps on.

Thats it. Now we just wait two weeks and the beer should be carbonated and ready to drink.

Batch #1 - IPA - Secondary Fermenter

Its been one week since fermentation began and its time to transfer the beer into a secondary fermenter. I did a good bit of research on the debatable subject of secondary fermentation and decided to give it a try. Racking the beer from the primary fermenter to a secondary fermenter gets the beer off of the sediment and aids in clearing the beer. The problem is that everytime you expose the beer to oxygen, you risk contamination. Further, some people think that leaving the beer on the sediment (trub) has no negative effect on taste so racking is just a waste of time unless you plan on fermenting for a long period of time (lagers and high gravity beers). One thing people do tend to agree on is that it is best to rask to a secondary fermenter if you plan to dry hop the beer. Since I was planning on dry hopping (and because I was getting bored and impatient just watching the jug of beer sit in the corner) I decided to rack the beer to a secondary.

First things first, I needed a secondary fermenter. I purchased a 6 gallon glass carboy this time instead of another 5 gallon. The reason I bought a 6 gallon is because next time I plan on using the 6 gallon as the primary fermenter and racking to the 5 gallon. With a 6 gallon primary, I won't need a blowoff tube. Apparently using a blowoff tube results in the loss of some hop aroma.

After getting the new carboy out of the box, I immediately proceeded to drop on the driveway. Nice move. It has a small (1/4") crack on the inside near the neck. I will probably replace it before the next batch, but for now I think it will be ok because the crack is airtight and is higher than the beer will sit.

The racking was pretty simple. We sanitized the new carboy, stopper, airlock, hydrometer and siphon. Then we removed the blowoff tube and stopper and took a reading with the hydrometer. The specific gravity was now 1.015. According to the charts I think I am around 7% abv. That sounds about right for an IPA.

Next I sat the fermenter on the table, inserted the auto-siphon, pumped once and the beer started flowing into fermenter #2. We took a quick sample at this point. It was actually really good. Good bitterness and flavor. It was a little yeasty (as expected) and lacked some of the hop aroma I was shooting for, but overall pretty good. The dry hops should add a good bit of aroma.

Once the beer was completely transferred to the second fermenter, I shoved about an ounce of cascade hops into the new fermenter. That's it, racking and dryhopping done. I put the new stopper and airlock in place and put the fermenter back to bed. Its bubbling about once a minute (or slower) now. I'm planning to leave it like this for two weeks before bottling.

One thing I am not certain of is whether I racked at the right time. You are supposed to rack after primary fermentation ends. How do you know when that happens? The general rule (which is what I used) is one week. Another theory is to wait until bubbling gets down to about 5 per minute. That is about what mine was at, but I never timed it. Still another method, and probably the most accurate, is to take daily hydrometer readings. When the readings level off, primary fermentation has ended. This method, however, runs the risk of contaminating the beer every time you take a reading.

I guess that is it for now. I have no pictures of the actual racking procedure because I was cheap and bought batteries for my camera at IKEA. I ran through 10 AA batteries in 10 days and only took about 30 pictures. Bottom line, the camera had no juice on racking day.

Here are some pictures after one day in the secondary fermenter. The hops are covering the top and the beer is noticeably darker than it was in the primary.



Now, wait two weeks .......... In the meantime I'll be cleaning out old beer bottles and getting ready to bottle.

Batch #1 - IPA - Primary Fermentation

The first day of fermentation did not go as planned. I put the fermenter in the basement and waited. After 24 hours, there was no activity. I consulted the books and decided that the problem was that the basement was too cold. The temperature needs to be around 70 degrees, the basement was hovering around 65 degrees. I decided it was time to move the fermenter upstairs. When moving the 5 gallon jar, I undoubtedly stirred things up a bit, not sure if this is a problem or not.

Day 1

After moving it upstairs, the fermenter immediately kicked into action. The first day was just a little bubbling and a small ring of foam at the top.



Day 2

Fermentation picked up on the second day. There was now a large head of foam (technically Krausen I believe) and a steady stream of foam moving through the blowoff tube. The bubbling was very rapid (at least one a second) and the beer started smelling very hoppy!! I was a little concerned at this point that the color of the beer was much darker than any IPA I've seen.



Days 3 through 6

The next few days of fermentation saw a slight increase in activity. By the 6th day, fermentation had slowed to a bubble every few seconds and there was nothing coming through the blowoff tube except gas. One unexpected change was that the beer was getting lighter. It was now really starting to resemble a pale ale.

Day 3


Day 4


Day 5



I think primary fermentation should wind down tomorrow and then I will rack the beer to a secondary fermenter to get it off the trub (the sediment on the bottom).

Batch #1 - India Pale Ale

For our first beer, we've decided to do an India Pale Ale. We recently moved to Oregon, in the heart of hop country, so an over hopped IPA seems like the natural choice. Plus, after consuming gallons of Bridgeport's Fresh Hop IPA last fall, I've set a goal of making an all-grain fresh hopped IPA of my own this fall. Oregon has plenty of fresh hops, so all I need to do is figure out how to use them before the harvest.

While my goal is to eventually brew all-grain, I've decided to go with a partial mash (extract plus steeped grains) recipe for my first batch. I picked up a basic IPA recipe and ingredients at Bader Brewing Supply in Vancouver. I'm going to use the recipe as a basic framework. Here are the ingredients.

Goodbye Shotgun IPA


6.6 lbs Unhopped Light Malt Syrup (Coopers brand)
2 lbs Light Dry Malt Powder
1 lb 20L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb 40L Crystal Malt
1/2 lb Dextrin Malt
1 lb Victory Malt
4 oz Cascade Hops (6%)
2 oz Amarillo Hops (9.5%)
1/2 tsp Irish Moss

Steeping the whole grain

After sanitizing everything I could think of I fired up the stove and started heating up 3 gallons of water (filtered and ozonated). Once I hit 150 degrees, I started steeping the cracked grains in a grain bag.

The steeping grains smelled like a bowl of grape nuts. After steeping the grains for about 30 minutes at 150 deg, I removed the bag and brought the water up to a rolling boil. The water had a deep reddish brown color.

Boiling the wort and hopping

Once the water was boiling, we added one cup of Coopers Unhopped Light Malt Syrup. This stuff has the consistency of thick maple syrup and is incredibly messy.

Time for some hops. To begin, I opened a 2oz package of Cascades and a 2oz pacakge of Amarillos.

I only planned to add 1 oz of each but accidentally threw in all 4oz!! Josie had even asked me beforehand "Are you using all of those?" I think I said "no" at the same time I was dumping them all in the pot. I decided to have another beer and figure out how to remedy this situation.



My concern was not that the beer would be too hoppy, rather I was concerned that I didn't have enough hops left. My understanding is that hops added at the beginning of the boil will contribute to bitterness, while hops added at the end of the boil give beer flavor and aroma.

In order to get the perfect balance of bitterness and flavor, I planned to add 5 oz of hops over the course of 60 minutes in 15 minute intervals. I was going to use the last ounce to dry hop after fermentation.

Josie suggested removing some of the hops from the wort and setting them aside to add later. This seemed like a reasonable solution. About a minute after adding them to the boil, I removed about 2 cups of hops. I have no clue what this is going to do the beer, although I imagine its going to be impossible to replicate.

After boiling for 15 minutes, I added a big scoop of the wet hops and 1/2 tsp of irish moss. The hop aroma coming off the pot at this point was incredible. After another 15 minutes (30 min total) I added another scoop of wet hops to the boil. Right about that time, it started hailing.

At the 45 minute mark, I added the remaining wet hops to the wort and put the wort chiller into the pot. Putting the chiller in at this point sanitizes the copper tubing, but also makes stirring the wort tricky.

With three minutes to go in the one hour boil, I added 1 oz of dry cascade hops. Then I turned off the heat and added the remaining malt syrup and malt powder. This is where I may have screwed up. The malt powder didn't seem to dissolve completely - it was like stirring two pounds of flour into a bowl of maple syrup - not easy. There were big clumps of malt powder everywhere. Next time I think I will boil more water to begin with in order to make stirring easier. The books and recipe say to boil only 3 gallons in the pot (the other 3 gallons go into the fermenter cold) but I think is to aid in cooling the wort. Since I have a wort chiller, I don't need to worry about cooling the wort in the fermenter.

Chilling, pitching and fermenting

Once I got the wort mixed as good as possible, I turned on the hose and started chilling the wort using an immersion wort chiller. It cooled to 75 degrees in about 8 minutes. I poured 3 gallons of cold water into the fermenter (5 gallon glass carboy) and then poured the wort in through a strainer and funnel.

I used a beer thief to take a temperature and specific gravity reading (70 degrees, specific gravity 1.070). Not sure how accurate this reading was though because I didn't wait for the wort to settle first. Assuming it was accurate, the original gravity is pretty high. Based on my research, this is going to come in at around 7.5% abv.

Next I pitched in the yeast (California Ale Yeast - liquid), attached the blow off tube and moved the fermenter to the basement.





Now its time to wait.