Lemon Stinger American Ale

	70^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.012	1.013	1.0715	7.67%

Ingredients

· 1 lb. American Carmel 10^oL

· 5 lbs. Plain Light Dry Malt Extract

· 1 lb. Rice Syrup Solids

· 1 oz. Cascade Hops (Bettering Hops)

· 0.5 oz. Hersbrucker Pellets (Flavoring Hops)

· 0.5 oz. Hersbrucker Pellets (Aroma Hops)

· 2 lbs. Clover Honey

· American Ale Yeast Blend White Labs WLP060

Brewers Log

Beer Date 04142008: <Day 1>

Today was a special occasion, my dad was in town visiting. He was looking for a break from the daily grind and came down to hang out for a week of not working and just hanging out. I thought he might enjoy brewing a batch during his stay.

Wanted a lighter brew, found a nice and refreshing recipe online at beertools.com. We were looking for a Honey Amber and found a recipe is called Dixie Lemon Ale. http://www.beertools.com/html/recipe.php?view=7307

Washed out brew pot and threw filled with 2.5 gallons of bottled spring water.

Poured grains into a muslin socks.

• 1 lb. American Carmel 10^oL

Steeped the grains for 30 minutes at ~ 160^oF. Nothing too eventful happened, this was such a small amount of grain compared to earlier batches.

After the grains sat for a good ½ hour I took the sock out of the pot. I held it above and let it drip until the sock got heavy and I set it in a bowl and let it leak. There was such a small amount of liquid and Dave went to bed a little early this batch wasn’t mixed into his usual iced tea concoction.

As the temperature approached boiling we added the malt extracts. Not much eventful happening here. It didn’t even bubble up as it reached boiling like several other batches have. It just suddenly hit a rolling boil.

• 5 lbs. Plain Light Dry Malt Extract
• 1 lb. Rice Syrup Solids

The DME came in 1 lb bags, so rather then using a partial I just put in the full bag, if it is a little stronger, awesome.

Once the rolling boil was well established I tossed in the bittering hops. I was hoping to purchase the dried hops plants (not pellets) but with the shortage I didn’t have much of a selection and was satisfied in the fact that they had the hops I needed.

• 1 oz. Cascade Hops (Bettering Hops)

As it boiled we continued to stir every 5 minutes or so to sufficiently mix in the hops.

After 30 minutes of the boil I added the Flavoring Hops.

• 0.5 oz. Hersbrucker Pellets (Flavoring Hops)

At 45 minutes I added the aroma hops (as specified by the directions).

• 0.5 oz. Hersbrucker Pellets (Aroma Hops)

At 50 minutes I added the honey. I removed from the burner and stirred it in like I would with a liquid extract, stirring heavily to make sure it doesn’t clump and stick to the bottom.

• 2 lbs. Clover Honey

Recipe called for 1.5 lbs of honey, but it was the same price get a single 2 lb jar or to get three ½ lb jars. We chose to just put in the extra honey and hopefully make it a little stronger.

After the boil was complete I moved the cooking pot to the sink and packed 2 bags of cubed ice around the pot. I made the conscious decision to not stir this time. I had read that you can cool it more quickly by stirring, but there is a better chance for contamination that way. Thought I would give it a shot not stirring this time. It took significantly longer to cool down this time. Previously it was taking 20-25 mintues to cool down to < 80 ^oF, this time it took about double that at 40-45 minutes.

Dad and I strained the wort filtering out the thick and gooey remains of the hops pellets. Once again I am very satisfied with the strainer purchase I made a batch or two ago.

I filled the bucked with more spring water up to the 5 gallon mark, and then began siphoning to the 6.5 gallon carboy. I really got this siphoning stage down J

I vigorously shook the carboy to mix in a bunch of air and then I poured a slight bit out to take a temp and specific gravity reading. This had a rather high specific gravity reading, based on prior batches I expect this to be somewhere between 7% and 8% J

	74^oF	Adj
SPGR	1.070	1.0715

Recipe called for Wyeast American Ale, but I didn’t see it there, and I actually like the White Labs vials better then the Wyeast smack packets. For some reason I get intimidated when I smack the packet. White Labs is simpler shake and pour, just need to open carefully some times it sprits when you open.

• American Ale Yeast Blend White Labs WLP060

Capped the carboy with a hose going into a bucket of water. This will keep air from coming up the hose into the carboy, but will allow gas to easily escape without clogging the air lock if there is a great deal of activity.

Beer Date 04272008: <Day 14>

I have procrastinated long enough, time to rack into the secondary carboy. Instructions call for the zest of 2 lemons, but I was not able to find a zesting tool. Dave helped out and took care of this step while I sanitized the carboy, hosing and re-racked the beer.

It seemed to work pretty good, Dave used a standard vegetable peeler and peeled a layer of the lemon peel, and then sliced them into thin strips.

I pulled a small amount liquid out for a specific gravity reading. I have been a little nervous about what temp this batch has been fermenting at. I have been cheap by not turning on the A/C and just opening the windows at night, but we are not getting to a high temp of 100^o F and the last couple of nights have been a little rough trying to sleep. But my worries were for nothing, The makeshift swamp cooler method has been working well because I had a reading of 70^o F when I took my reading. However I did turn on the A/C in the house today.

By the reading below, there doesn’t appear to be much sugar left, but it is still bubbling at a pretty good rate.

	70^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.012	1.013	1.0715	7.67%

Once it was all said and done I dropped in the lemon zest and put the carboy back in the cooler We’ll let this sit a couple of weeks in the secondary fermenter so it can really take in the oils form the lemon zest. I imagine the bubbling will slow down very soon.

Beer Date 05112008: <Day 28>

The specific gravity is the same as a couple of weeks back when I racked into the secondary fermenter, bottling day has arrived.

This was the messiest bottling in a while, I guess I let myself get distracted enough to spill a little bit. (but not too much). As usual I siphoned the first bit into a sauce pan that we brought to a boil to dissolve and sanitize the 5 ounces priming sugar. The fist bit of spillage came while siphoning into the bottling bucket, the hose slipped and spilled some beer onto the floor.

After mixing back in the primed beer, it was time to bottle. Since today is Mother’s day and Dave’s family is on the east coast and he took a few minutes here to call home. Jim helped me with the bottling.

The rest of the spillage came as overflow during bottling. It wasn’t too much, but enough to annoy me as it easily would have easily given us another bottle L.

There was one dead soldier and a final bottle that was only ¾ full that were wasted, but when it was all said and done we got 44 bottles out of it.

	70^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.012	1.013	1.0715	7.67%

I decided to actually name this beer. Partially because we did make some mods to the recipe (ever so slight) and partially because a name jumped out at me while we were bottling. Jim or Dave threw out a name or two earlier, but when we tasted it there was a very sharp lemon flavor. I decided to call it Lemon Stinger American Ale. I am very curious for this beer to bottle condition so I can try one. it was rather tasty in the samples. The lemon zest seems to have added a different type of bitterness then hops.