Nut Brown Ale

	65^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.016	1.016	1.056	5.25%

Ingredients

· 8 lbs. Ultralight Malt Extract

· ½ lb. Crystal 60L

· ½ lb. Caravienne

· ¼ lb. Victory

· ¼ lb. Chocolate

· 1 oz. Glacier Hops (Bittering)

· 1 oz. Willamette Hops (Flavoring)

· 1 oz. Willamette Hops (Aroma)

· 1 Whirfloc tablet

· Wyeast British Ale Yeast # 1098

Brewers Log

Beer Date 12142008: <Day 1>

I had the kegs out of the fridge for a little bit while I was using my new counter pressure bottle filler and could tell by the condensation on the keg that they were all starting to et a little low. This means it is time to brew another batch.

Let me write for a moment about this bottler filler. This is a neat device. It lets me bottle kegged beer. You can bottle by just setting the bottle under the faucet and pouring, but that doesn’t work as smoothly as you might think. A lot of the carbon dioxide is released during this pour and if you don’t drink it soon (like when you pour a pint) it gets rather flat. I learned this the hard way when I filled a couple of growlers for an election party. I filled them the day before to let the foam settle and when we drank it was very much lacking carbonation.

The bottle filler is basically 3-way valve with a pressure release valve. You insert into the bottle making sure the rubber stopper fits snug, then you turn on the gas line to flush out all the oxygen. Then you turn on the beer and adjust the pressure relieve valve so the beer flows at the rate you wish. It took a while to figure out the subtle details in using this wonderful piece of hardware, and I wasted a bit of brew in the process but I think it was worth it.

Anyways, by filling some bottles to bring home for the holidays to share with friends and family, I realized how low I was getting. I had already prepared for this by ordering a kit that shipped with the bottle filler, so I guess at some level I already knew. Anyways I had been contemplating brewing a Nut Brow Ale for a while now. That was one of the earlier types of beer that I learned to appreciate, but there was always something higher on the list that I wanted to try to make. Well today is the day.

I ordered the kit from morebeer.com. I spent a little bit of time looking up some recipes in one of my books, but they looked pretty similar to the ingredients in the kit so I decided not to modify anything and to just brew as is.

http://morebeer.com/view_product/18337/102178/Nut_Brown_Ale-_Extract

I started off by slapping the smack packet in the foil pouch of yeast and throwing a gallon of bottled spring water in the fridge to help cool everything when quickly. Then I 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.

· ½ lb. Crystal 60L

· ½ lb. Caravienne

· ¼ lb. Victory

· ¼ lb. Chocolate

I steeped the grains just under 170^oF for ½ hour.

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

· 8 lbs. Ultralight Malt Extract

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

It seemed to take forever for the foam to break. It was like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going. A light brown foam grew to just below the rim of the pot and stayed there for what seemed to be an eternity. Eventually tiny, dark brown bubbles came up through the foam in the middle of the pot and bubbled for a while. I took the whisk and stirred a bit and the foam dissipated. The whole thing seemed like an eternity but was somewhere between 2-3 minutes.

· 1 oz. Glacier Hops (Bittering)

I got up every few minutes to stir and after 55 minutes I added the flavoring hops and the clarifier tablet. After doing this I realized that I had forgotten to put the hops pellets into the bag, meaning that it was going to be a little messier to clean up. Oh well.

· 1 oz. Willamette Hops (Flavoring)

· 1 Whirfloc tablet

After 59 minutes I added the aroma hops.

· 1 oz. Willamette Hops (Aroma)

After an hour I pulled the pot off the heat and poured in the gallon of water that I put into the fridge. In the time it took to pour the gallon of water and stir, the wort dropped from ~ 210^oF to ~ 140^oF. After that I put the pot in the sink and packed with ice and lit it drop to below 80^oF.

Dave held the strainer over the bucket while I poured. The strainer filled up fast with a thick hopy goo, and with half the wort still to go. Fortunately there was a little bit of sanitizer left and I was able to sanitize a spoon to help the flow. Then we poured in some more bottled water up to the 5 gallon mark.

While trying to disconnect the hose from my siphon setup, I managed to break the end of my racking cane. Fortunately I had another to use as a backup. But it wasn’t nearly as good. My setup had a can inside a tube that worked like a pump to get everything started. What I had to do here was take a measuring cup (sanitized) of wort and manually fill the end of the hose and tilt it to create the vacuum necessary the siphon to work. It was a pain, but it did the trick. I need to pick up another one like what I broke, I liked that much better.

After siphoning into the carboy I shook it up a bit to mix in some oxygen and then added the yeast.

· Wyeast British Ale Yeast # 1098

I usually take the specific gravity reading before adding the yeast, but this time I spaced and just added. I waited a little bit and took a reading.

	70^oF	Adj
SPGR	1.055	1.056

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 01012009: <Day 19>

New years day and several friends are coming over to watch the Rose Bowl. I was hoping for an Oregon State Vs. Penn State rematch, but the ducks were able to spoil those plans much like how we spoiled USC’s shot at the national title. Oh well, USC and Penn state should be a good game.

As part of my cleanup for the festivities I chose to go ahead and rack the beer into the keg. It was a little different because I had a new siphon racking cane. It a bit bigger and almost too big to work on the counter like I currently use it. I guess I will have to migrate to the kitchen table from now on because there really isn’t enough room to pump the siphon from the counter top.

	65^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.016	1.016	1.056	5.25%