Black Friday sneak preview

Bah humbug!  With the exception of giving present to our children, I have come to despise the Americanized institution of the Yuletide holiday season.

I see Christmas decorations in stores starting before Labor Day…

I have to listen to umpteen versions of holiday messages on company automated phone systems….

Likewise, I hear holiday music piped into every store…..

Whatever happened to the Christmas holiday season starting the Friday immediately after Thanksgiving?  Why do I need to see fake Christmas trees in my frickin’ grocery store before Fall has officially commenced?… when I am still wearing shorts and tank tops on a regular basis?

If it weren’t for the fact that we have 3 young kids that expect the fat guy in red with hypertension and heart disease to come bring them presents… I would totally be fine with not doing Christmas at all….

Unless any of you, Constant Reader, might have bought me a conical fermenter or a kegging system…. Hey, I am American.  I am allowed my materialistic lifestyle, am I not?

Listen, it’s been a while since I have posted here.  I know that I suck, and you all are patiently  awaiting my posts on a near-weekly basis.  I will be backfilling some brewday write-ups.  As with everything else, real life has gotten in the way since August.

We were able to squeak out a brewday today.  My aim was for an Irish Red ale based on the original Potato Famine Ale.  I made some changes to the recipe as I was buying my ingredients.  This brew-day was very much off-the-cuff and unplanned.  As I mentioned in the weekly “Who’s brewing what” thread on BeerAdvocate… this batch will either be spectacular, or it will taste like a bag of ass.  Either way, I was fine with the result because it meant I got to brew.

As mentioned, the original recipe is here.  What I ended up brewing yesterday was the following:

For 5.25 gallons:

• 6 lbs Maris Otter
• 2lbs Weyermann Smoked malt
• 1 lb Weyermann Vienna
• 1lb British Pale Malt
• 1lb Mild Malt
• 1lb Cara-Amber Malt
• 1/2lb Medium Crystal Malt (40*L)
• 1/4lb Cara-Aroma Malt
• 1 oz Black Patent
• Mashed at 158*F for an hour

I had a difficult time deciding what to do for the hops with this batch.  On the one hand, I could do for replication of the original recipe and use Fuggles… On the other hand, I have a freezer full (literally) of homegrown Willamettes and Nuggets.  I decided to be thrifty and use the Willamettes:

• 1/2oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) added during the sparge
• 1oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) added at 60 minutes
• 1/2oz Willamette whole hops (5.5%AA) added at 15 minutes
• 2oz Willamette whole hops added incrementally starting at 5 minutes left through flameout
• Yeast used was WYeast 1084 Irish Ale.

This brewday went very quick and easy.  I managed to have the beer in the carboy in just over 4 hours after starting the mash.  I am pretty sure that the sparge went quicker than preferred.  It did not hurt efficiency for the batch, which was a very acceptable 73%, but I probably could have had closer to 80% had I slowed the flow rate a bit.

As for my prediction on BeerAdvocate that this would be spectacular or “taste like a bag of ass”… the gravity sample holds great promise for a nice, malty beer.  My only complaint overall is that the color did not turn out red like I wanted it to, but rather more of a burnt brown.  If that is the worst this beer has to offer, I will be in good shape.

I plan to use the yeast cake from this batch in a dry stout in a few weeks.  Getting into the holiday season, I won’t have many chances to brew, but at this point, we only need to brew three more batches to make the 100 gallon mark for the year. (One of these years, we will hit the full 200 gallon limit, but I think that will take some equipment upgrades, or winning the lottery).

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