03/27/11

Newcastle Clone (Brown Ale)
Bob and Youness

7 lbs. pale malt extract

12oz. Caramel Malt 40L (milled)
4oz. Chocolate Malt (milled)

1oz. Willamette hop pellets (4.8%AA) (60 min)
1oz. Kent Golding hop pellets (5 min)

Starter made 03/26/11 from flask from starter made 12/30/10

Heat 2.5 gallons water to 175 degrees, turn off heat, and steep the milled grains for 15 minutes. Discard grains and bring liquid to a boil. Turn the heat off again and stir in the liquid dry malt extract until completely dissolved. Return to boil.

Add first hops (Willamette) and wait 45 minutes.

Add wort chiller (to sterilize) and set timer for 10 minutes.

Add second hops (Kent Golding) hops and set timer for 5 minutes.

Cool wort using wort chiller to under 120 degrees (metal cauldron is bearable to the touch) then pour through a coarse strainer into plastic bucket. Top up to 5 gallons with distilled water. Take gravity reading. Add yeast. Decant through a strainer funnel into 6.5gallon carboy.

Target OG: 1.050-1.052
Target FG: 1.010-1.012
Target ABV: 5.3%

Actual OG: 1.051
Right on target.

Issues with this brew: After adding the yeast to the bucket I realized that it probably would have been smarter to add the yeast directly to the carboy so that it doesn't have to pass through the fine strainer in the funnel. Next time.



03/31/11

Decanted to secondary 5 gallon carboy. Direct syphon to the bottom of the carboy with no filter. No syphon problems. Remaining yeast cake is firm and uniform in color, mostly smooth with some ridges and air bubbles. I plan to decant the yeast cake and use it for starters.