No Patience

Man, who can hold back when the weather turns nice and you've got 2 (almost) cases of young, nubile homebrew glancing coquettishly at you from across the garage, with big beckoning eyes, batting their long, moist eyelashes and licking their full, pouty lips, rubbing their... Mmmm.....

Uh...sorry, I was thinking of something else.

Really though, who? Not me, that's who. Nevermind that they need at least 3 more days to-ahem!-mature. I'm crackin' one! Especially considering I'm out of the APA too. OK, let's see what my impatience gets me.

Not bad. But not as AWWWSUMMM as I'm ultimately going for. Here's the recipe:

500 g Dry Wheat, 15 min

409 g Dry Amber, 15 min 

500 g Dry Light Extract, 60 min

1000 g American 2-row-mashed, 60 min @ 67C; 10 min sparge @ 74C

1500 g Maris Otter Pale, 60 min @ 67C; 10 min sparge @ 74C

450 g Crystal Malt 60°L, 60 min @ 67C; 10 min sparge @ 74C

300 g Munich TYPE I, 60 min @ 67C; 10 min sparge @ 74C

10 g Simcoe (13.0%) 60 min 

15 g East Kent Goldings (5.0%) 20 min 

15 g East Kent Goldings (5.0%) 15 min 

25 g Cascade (5.5%) 10 min 

5 g Cascade (5.5%) 0 min

Yeast- 11g Fermentis US-05 pitched dry

OG = 1.063 (est; I measured 1.096, but that's prolly cuz I hadn't adequately mixed in my top-up water)

FG = 1.015

ABV = 6%

My brews seem to be getting incrementally better. This one has more body to it than the last one. Pretty much exactly where I want it, in fact. Hearty, but without turning to porridge. I attribute that to the fact that I stirred the grains from time to time while mashing, thereby increasing their output (OG=1.096? That can't be right). Previously I let them sit all cramped up in the grain bag, only swishing them around every once in a while.

I'll go easy on myself because it's so young still, and even give myself a little pat on the back for good color and a nice creamy head after only 5 days in the bottle; but I am making a big mental note to get back to my hoppy Northwest heritage (PDX, IN THA HAUS!!). This one and the last one I messed around with Anglifying it; using some Brit ingredients in my American ales, and generally going easy on the hops. Well that was fun and insightful, but I can now say with confidence, been there, done that, glad it's over. I learned a bit about what malts do, and especially in the hands of an inexperienced greenhorn like myself, I can now testify that without a proper hop balance (other things notwithstanding), maltiness by itself ain't necessarily a good thing. If anything I could bump up the malt--or just my mashing efficiency--a couple of notches, and bump up the hops waaay more.

'bekko' comes from the amber of tortoise shell. neat!

Yeah, this Bekko Amber Ale isn't bad; I'm getting there. It just needs to grow up a bit. It's almost too sweet for my liking. We'll see what a few more days in the bottle does to it. What it won't do though, is give it more hop bitterness or aroma, which is what it really needs to even out and be that elusive kick-ass brew that I'm searching for.

I've also reached an important juncture in my short sojourn as a homebrewer. But I'll save that for the next post. I've got to open another one of those meaty Bekko's and see if it's improved any in the last 2 hours. To the lab, then! A brewer's research is never done.


Addendum to the experiment from the previous post: the brew in the video is 'No. 11' of 35, and was fairly weakly carbonated. I opened another, 'No. 25' which had a fair bit more carbonation, that mitigated the carmelly malt sweetness somewhat. This could mean that the priming sugar mixture tended to sink, rather than mix evenly. However, until I open and drink several more from the earlier and later ends of the bottling run, I won't know for sure. Keep you posted.