Yesterday, I brewed for the first time in a few months - a hoppy pale ale to be served at the July 25th Luther's Taproom - Summer Picnic Edition.  As always, I brewed at the CHAOS Homebrew Club brewhouse and the photo  is from about 12 hours after pitching the yeast, in the brewhouse's temperature controlled fermentation room.  You can see the CO2 being vented from the glass carboy I'm using as a fermenter, through an inch-wide plastic tube into a ball jar filled with Star San to form an airlock - gas can escape but air doesn't get into the fermenter.  It is happily bubbling away.  The CO2 is a product of fermentation, released by the yeast along with ethanol, as they eat up and process the sugars in the wort.  

For this beer, I mashed 12 1/4 lbs of malted grains in 152F degree water for an hour, then batch sparged or rinsed the grains until I had 8 gallons of wort, or unfermented beer.  I then boiled the wort for an hour, adding hops, and after the boil there was 6 gallons of wort left.  After adding Irish moss, a seaweed-derived fining agent used in brewing to improve beer clarity, I chilled the wort from boiling to 67F degrees with an immersion chiller (copper tubing with cold water running through it), which took a little less than 20 minutes.  I added oxygen to the chilled wort - yeast need oxygen and much of the oxygen in the wort is boiled off.  I added an enzyme called Clarity Ferm which will reduce chill haze in the final beer.  Finally, I added the yeast, a strain called Nottingham, moved the carboy into the fermentation room and put on the tube and airlock, where it is bubbling away at a cool 65F degrees, a standard fermentation temperature for ales.  

Recipe

pH adjustment for Chicago water - 10 ml lactic acid added to the mash

Mash temp 152F for 60 minutes, batch sparge at 169F

Original Gravity 1.055

Bitterness 60 IBU

Final Gravity TBD

ABV TBD

Dingemans Pale Ale Malt, 84% of the malt bill (Dingemans is a Belgian maltster)

Breiss Caramel 20 Malt, 8% of the malt bill (Breiss is a Wisconsin malster)

Breiss White Wheat Malt, 8% of the malt bill

1 oz. Chinook hops boiled for 60 minutes 

1 oz. HBC 638 experimental hop boiled for 20 minutes

1 oz HBC 638 experimental hop boiled for 10 minutes

Irish Moss

Lallemand's Nottingham yeast

White Labs' Clarity Ferm

Dingemans Pale Ale malt is new to me, according to their website, "Our Pale Ale 9 MD malt is made from the finest 2-row European summer barley. It is fully modified, and receives longer and more intense kilning than our Pilsen MD malt. It lends a golden colour, complex malty character and exquisite body to the final product."

I often add 1 lb of wheat malt to the grain bill, to help with head retention in the final beer.  The 20L Caramel malt is to add a little body to the mouthfeel and a touch of sweetness.  According to Breiss' website "This is a drum roasted crystallized malt that improves foam, enhances viscosity, and contributes golden hues with a candy-like sweetness. Our Caramel Malts are roaster produced, making them the fullest flavored and best-performing Caramel Malts."

I like Chinook as a bittering hop and for its underlying pine and resin flavors.  The HBC 638 experimental hops have not been given a name yet, and may or may not go into full commercial production.  According to the producer's website, "HBC 638 is both familiar and exciting at the same time. This new variety combines the classic characteristics of hops like Centennial – bright citrus, fresh flowers, and a touch of stone fruit  – with a modern tropical punch of mango, pineapple, banana, cherry, strawberry, and cantaloupe."