Brew #5 Mosquito Trapped in Amber

I started creating a few recipes at a time and buying a couple when I go to the brew store so I can save the number of trips there. Had nothing going on Friday so I brewed up this little gem. I wanted a lighter but hoppy amber ale, and wanted a slight kick to it so it has some slight dark malts, giving the name Mosquito Trapped in Amber. I also gave it a decent hop at 44.5 IBUs, and wanted to try out the "Evil Twin" method of lots of late hop additions. For a 5 gal batch the est SG was 1.055, but again I brewed too little and ended with 4 gallons, bringing the est SG to 1.069. The measured SG was 1.068 so that's right on the button. Looks really interesting and should be a great drinkable beer.

The biggest problem I'm having now is amount of wort achieved. I think I need to mark off the brew kettle at 5 gal and account for 20% boil off instead of 10% now, see if that helps.

I also bottled the spicey Grey Lady Clone #1 to see how the spice settles as it ages. It could be a good Christmas style beer if it mellows for the next 6 months. The FG was 1.010 bringing the alcohol to about 5.7% or so. Its not exact since i had to add the water and 1lb of honey, which was hopefully neutral.

Plan to do a big cleaning and sterilizing session this week at some point to completely clean the brewery before the next big brew on the 8th.

Updates

It's been a couple weeks since I updated as I was on vacation and busy with work.

The Grey Lady Clone that had way too much spice and was small, I added a gallon of water and 1lb of honey (to counter the added gallon of water). When I did this I put it in the secondary. After another week of fermenting the new sugars here I added it to the tertiary fermenter (another secondary) where it currently sits. Sometime this week I will bottle/keg it and check the final grav. My calculations for actual SG work out to be 1.061.

The Dupont Special turned out to be 5% alc and tastes pretty light but has some slight Bavarian qualities. I also noticed some strage off flavors, as I did with the Angry Ogre vs Warrior so I will have to see if the off flavors disappear with age like the AOvW.

I also created the recipe for the next planned brew, which is the Bourbon Drunken Irishman. It will be an Irish Red and Scotch Ale hybrid with 15% Rye added to it, then bourbon soaked oak chips added to the secondary. It has an SG of 1.091 so I had to use Scottish Ale yeast with the Irish Ale, so 2 packs of yeast! It should be VERY complex and interesting tasting. Can't wait for it to age. This brew is planned for August 8th.

Also, found out about this video today and its a great watch. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwy6XMN30CA

Brew #4 - The Grey Lady Clone #1

Well the brew went well, but I was too wrapped up in other things and didn't account for boil off, and adding more water, etc. We ended up with 3.5 gallons instead of 5, and the spices should have only been there 10 minutes but I couldn't fish them out so they stayed the whole boil. Next time need to use string or something... but we live and learn and this is what brewing is all about. It came out really spicey, but other than the spices it seemed to be tasty. The SG was 1.054.

The Dupont Special was also bottled and finished with a FG of 1.010.

Brew #4 happening at 4PM today July 2nd.

Read the title. Questions call the phone in contact info.

Brew #4 Update

Brew #4 is planned for this afternoon. It will be The Grey Lady clone. Est brew time is around 4PM, but will update more info later when I know better.