I got it bad and its all over my body. Gross! Anyway I decided to make up another batch this afternoon, but nothing overly complicated. This session would be a Extract with Specialty grains. The recipe as follows:
Bradinator’s Frigid Irish Lass (Stout)
Extract Profile -
- 3.3 lbs of Coopers Real Ale LME
- 500 g of Brewers grade Corn Syrup
Grain Profile -
- 250 g of Chocolate Malt
- 500 g of Crystal Malt (60L/Dark)
Steeped in 80-90C water for 30 minutes
Hops Profile -
- Mount Hood @ 60 minutes
- UK First Gold @ 60 minutes
Misc -
- 1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 10 minutes
- 1/2 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ Cold Break
The steps
1) Bring 2 gallons of water to boil in your brewpot. During this time steep your grains in 80C water for 20-30 minutes
2) At boil remove from heat and combine the grain tea and extracts. Return to heat.
3) At boil again pitch your hops.
4) Maintain a slow rolling boil for 60 minutes. Add the Irish moss at 10 minutes before finish.
5) Remove from heat and cool
- I used a very poor method for getting my cold break. I tried taking advantage of the frigid -28c weather and placing it into the snow again BUT stupidly I moved the fermentor first added cooled water and then placed outside. I believe keeping it in the steel pot would have worked better, as the plastic fermenter did a very good job retaining its heat. I did not reach cold break for almost an hour. Lesson learned.
6) Pitch yeast at cold break and move into a dark, warm room.
Measure OG was 1.040, very close to the Beersmith perdicted 1.041.
I also took the time to take a gravity reading from my first partial mash attempt and actually moved it to a secondary, something I rarely do. Surprisingly enough the gravity reading was quite good, a solid 1.010. I took a small sample taste and have to admit that it wasn’t bad. You can really taste the oatmeal though which is a good sign I did not achieve a very good mash efficiency. I will probably give it another 2 weeks in the secondary and bottle over the Christmas holidays.
This will be the last brew for a bit. I do have one more extract kit left and lots of grain, but unless I get some amazing recipe I will probably just leave it until mid-February. I just don’t have enough bottles for 4-batches!
Someone once asked me if the juice was worth the squeeze, I told him I don't know but the beer is well worth the effort.