Schlenkerla's California Common Ale (amber) Slightly modified... :)
Grains:
3Lbs. of Muntons DME Amber.
1/4 Lb. of Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt
1/4 Lb. of Crystal 40L America
Hops:
1/2 Oz. Cascade Pellet @ 60 Min.
1/2 Oz. Cascade Pellet @ 30 Min.
1/2 Oz. Cascade Pellet @ Flameout.
Yeast:
Dasntar, Nottingham
Brewers Notes.
I placed all of my dry grains in a grain bag and placed them into the pot with 1 1/2 gal of cool water. I set the burner on the stove to med. heat. (6)
When the temp of the water reached 150 deg. F. I removed pot from heat, placed the lid on, and let the grains steep for 30 min.
After 30 min. steep, I removed grain bag and drained well. (No squeezing) Then I poured about a Quart of hot tap water over the grains to sparge them.
The Boil.
After steeping, draining, and sparging, I returned the pot to the heat and cranked it up pretty high. (9)
I heated the water to 200 deg. F. At which point it appeared to be "about to boil".
Note: It really smelled great at this point. :)
At 200 deg. I removed from heat and added about 1/3 of my DME. stirred it into the wort.
Note 1: I may have stirred a little too vigorously at this point. I caught myself and slowed it down to keep from splashing it around.
Note 2: It didn't smell nearly as good after adding DME.
After adding DME I returned to the heat and it came to a good rolling boil pretty quickly.
Then, I added 1/2 oz. of hops and started 60 min. countdown.
Note: After the first hops went in it began to REEK!
At 30 Min. I added another 1/2 Oz. hops.
At 15 Min. I removed it from the heat and added the rest of my DME.
Note: Quite a bit of the DME got wet and stuck to the bag due to the steam rising from the brewpot.
With 10 Min. remaining in the boil I added 1/2 tsp of Irish Moss.With 00 Min. remaining I removed the pot from the heat and tossed another 1/2 Oz. of hops on top. (No stirring or boiling)
A Note about the hops I used.
The recipe called for Cascade pellet hops ( 5.10) @ 60min and 30 min. and Cascade Whole (5.75) At flame out. The homebrew supply that we have locally didn't have these exact hops so I went with what they had. The hops that I bought are Argentine Cascade hops (Alpha 3.2). I'm not sure how that will affect the taste of the beer. Notice the above note about the fact that they reeked when I added them... So, I'm a little nervous about them. Also, the recipe called for whole hops at flameout. They didn't have these either so I just added more of the Argentine.
Cool down.
After flamout and the last hop addition the whole brewpot went into the sink for an Icebath. It took a little while and quite a bit of ice but I got it down to 95 deg. I then put it into my fermenter, added enough water to bring it up to 2.5 gallons, and took a Hydrometer reading. At least I think I did... 1.056 @ 95 deg. Since that is a little hot, I think I'm supposed to add 5 to the reading. So... 1.056 + 5 = 1.061?????? I've got to do some research on that one...
Pitching the yeast.
I checked the temp of the wort and it was around 90 deg f. so I sprinkled most of the yeast on top of the wort. ( I didn't use all of the packet because I figured that packet was for a 5 gal. batch.) I let it sit on top for 5 or so mins. while I cleaned up the kitchen a little. After the 5 min. I checked and most of the yeast had sunk so I gave it a vigorous stirring to mix the yeast into the wort and add oxygen. I put the lid on (not too tightly.) and placed it in the dark.