Irish Red Ale

	68^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.024	1.024	1.060	4.7%

Ingredients

· 8.1 lbs. of Pale Malt Extract

· 6 oz. Crystal 20L

· 6 oz. Crystal 120L

· 6 oz. Roasted Barley

· 1 ¼ oz. Mt Hood Hops (Bittering Hops)

· White Labs Pitchable Liquid Yeast – Irish Ale Yeast WLP004

Brewers Log

Beer Date 10182008: <Day 1>

My cousin came through town a few weeks ago, and to my surprise I found out that he was a bit of a beer connoisseur. We shot some pool and talked a lot about beer, especially home brew. He seemed very interested in a lot of the detail and how every thing works. Well this time when he told me he would be in town, I decided it was time to brew again. I put a bit of thought into it and decided to go with an Irish Red. It had been on my ‘to do list’ for a while but I never got around to it. I looked up a recipe in one of my books and picked up the ingredients, we had to make a couple of substitutions but stuck to the recipe for the most part.

Washed out my 5 gallon brew pot and filled with 2 gallons of bottled spring water and heated to ~ 160^oF.

I poured the grains into a grain bag and plopped into the water while turning the heat down to a very low setting and pulling the pot mostly off the burner.

· 6 oz. Crystal 20L

· 6 oz. Crystal 120L

· 6 oz. Roasted Barley

I steeped the grains just under 160^oF for ½ hour.

I pulled out the grain bags and let them drip as much as possible into the pot before placing in my mixing bowl to drain. Dave didn’t have any ice tea mixture so he didn’t utilize the drippings that collected in the bowl.

When the temperature of the wort crossed the 200 ^oF mark we added the malt extract.

· 8.1 lbs. of Pale Malt Extract

I removed the pot from the stove element and my cousin stirred as I poured in the extract.

Once the wort came to a boil and the foam died down, I added the bittering hops. The recipe called for Kent Goldings hops, but they didn’t have any so I had to substitute, I was told that Mt Hood hops would be a decent replacement so I decided to give it a try.

· 1 ¼ oz. Mt Hood Hops (Bittering Hops)

As usual I chose to go with while leaf hops.

Before brewing I put a gallon of bottled water in the fridge to help cool down the mixture after the boil. When the boil was done I poured in the gallon and packed the sink with ice to cool down the wort below 80 ^oF.

My cousin held the strainer and we strained out the hops and pouted into a sanitized bucket, topped off to the 5 gallon mark with water and then siphoned into the carboy and arrested for a couple minutes

I pulled out a small amount and took a specific gravity reading.

	77^oF	Adj
SPGR	1.059	1.060

I shook up the yeast a little bit and poured into the carboy.

· White Labs Pitchable Liquid Yeast – Irish Ale Yeast WLP004

I did my usual with the hose into a bucket of water, and I clipped on a butter knife to the end of a hose again to keep the hose under water.

Beer Date 11082008: <Day 22>

I have been checking the specific gravity for a week and a half now, I was expecting it to be a bit lower, but it just isn’t dropping any more and I am getting ready to leave for a business trip to Japan. It has been a long day, but after I got back and changed from Jason’s wedding I and transferred into a sanitized keg.

	68^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.024	1.024	1.060	4.7%