Brew #4; Anticipation Pale Nut Ale

Brew day was a jolly good time. My pal Stu came over to lend a hand and take some pictures, and we had a very special guest from overseas join us by video conference, Atsuko, the other half of M & A Brewing. She helped me remember when to put what in the pot, and how much of it. I couldn't have done it without you, Atsuko!

Sorry, don't know why blogspot needs to crop my videos.
Check out my Youtube spot if you want to read the full captions.

This time I mashed all my grains on the stove. 2.3 kg of grains in 6.6L of water at 66C for one hour, then raised the temp to 74C for mashout, and sparge/rinsed with 4L of water at 74C. Then I topped up to 14L with warm tap water for the boil.


Nothing special to the boil. See previous videos on this blog if you wanna watch how that goes. My OG was off by 8 points, 1.048 rather than 1.056; had a feeling I needed to add more DME, despite what the recipe calculated. Oh well, it's still in the style range for an American Pale Ale. Long as it kicks ass, I'm not worried.


I had a bit of trouble finding a good hose and clamp system for the new immersion chiller, but we eventually got it worked out, although it did leak quite a bit. Now I got my sights set on a badass plate chiller, yes indeed.


Also new this time, I used a conical strainer to get all the hops matter out of the wort, and that went quite well. My wort was considerably cleaner, and better tasting. It had a sweetness to it that previous batches have lacked, which I hope will balance with the nice bitterness that's also there. Right now they both exist side by side, and I'm hoping they mellow and merge over time.

Fermentation got going during the first night, and by the second evening it was clogging up the airlock with krausen. So I switched back to the blow-off tube you see in the picture in the previous post. All night it bubbled violently, like an old man with stomach trouble, waking me up every few seconds with a tremendous eruption of gas that would taper off into smaller and smaller 'blup-blup-blup-blup-blups' before beginning again. Then it pretty much went silent by last night, except for a slight hissing around the stopper where it doesn't fit completely snugly. But the weird thing is that it started up again early this morning, and was bubbling pretty earnestly when I left the house (not as much as before though). You can see it in the video there.

I'm wondering how that happened. The temperature has been at a steady 21C for almost the whole time--started at 19C for 12-18 hours or so and gradually went up to 21. I haven't moved it, so I don't know how the yeast could've gotten roused. It's a mystery. Ideas, anyone?

So it'll stay in the primary for a week, then rack to secondary with the crushed roasted walnuts that will have been soaking in vodka for 4 weeks, and hopefully that will give my pale ale a nutty note in the finish.

OK folks, I'll keep you posted. Get it, posted? Cuz it's a blog? Get it?