American Pale Ale May 7, 2011

Gary, Byron and I have decided that we are going to work on making the same recipe until we can get a consistent flavor and ABV, so we brewed the same American Pale Ale recipe as the April 16 batch.  In case you don't feel like looking back at that post, the recipe is as follows:

Grains:
9 lbs. US 2-Row
10 oz Crystal 60L
10 oz Crystal 40L
10 oz Crystal Special B
1/2 lb Carapils
Hops:
1/2 oz Goldings @ 60 minutes (the time refers to the amount of time left in the boil, not how long it has already boiled)
1 oz Cascade @ 15 minutes
1/2 oz Goldings - Dry Hop
1/2 oz Cascade - Dry Hop
Clarifiers:
1 Whirfloc Tablet (Irish Moss) @ 15 minutes
2 tsp Gelatin Finings at secondary rackover
Mash:
4 gal Water @ 155 degrees for 90 minutes
Boil:
90 minutes
Yeast:
Safale US-05 Dry Yeast from wort starter

We brewed on May 7 and racked the beer into the secondary on May 12.  It is still in the secondary and will probably be kegged around May 26.

The only change that we made was adding the Gelatin Finings when we racked the beer into the secondary.  We hope it will make this beer even clearer than the previous batch.

Our April batch had a starting gravity of 1.056
Our May batch had a starting gravity of 1.059, so there is going to be some variation in the alcohol content, but we won't know how much until we keg the beer.

I do like the color of this batch a bit more.  It looks richer.

 I will update if we make any changes.

American Pale Ale 4.16.11 Completion

Our APA stayed in the secondary fermenter for 14 days.  We kegged it on May 5.  After finding our finishing gravity of 1.002, we calculated that it is a whopping 7.3% ABV.  That's a hefty brew.

Here is Gary adjusting the pressure of the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) to "force-carbonate" the beer.  Basically, we connect the CO2 tank to the "out" valve of the keg (the out valve goes all the way to the bottom), then we force the CO2 in at 25-30 psi.  We will then pull the relief valve and relieve all of the pressure once or twice (this gets rid of any oxygen or O2 that may have gotten into the beer during the kegging process).  Then, we put the CO2 pressure onto the keg again and then shake it vigorously.  This forces the CO2 into the beer.  After this process, the beer will be carbonated in a few days.  This is much faster than other methods of carbonating beer.

As you can see, we have the CO2 connected to the keg, but the keg is not yet connected to the kegerator.  We put it in the kegerator and let it cool to drinking temperature and then connect it after a few days of forced carbonation.  The beer is now ready to drink and it is as tasty as it is potent. 

Now, the hard part is not drinking it all in one weekend (remember, homebrew draws a crowd).