Batch 11 - American Pale Ale

6 lbs Alexander's Pale Bulk Malt Syrup
1/2 lb English Crystal Malt, 40-50L
1/4 lb Dextrin Malt
1 1/2 Oz Perle Hops for boiling (I used 2)
1 Oz Cascade Hops for finishing (I used 2)
Wilamette and Kent Golding pelletized hops (~.5 oz each) in secondary
Same American Ale yeast used in the previous two batches

I started with a basic recipe for this batch, but added extra hops. I aerated using a shop vac. How this is done is placing the end of the shop vac to the lid of the brew bucket, where the airlock goes. Then turn on the vacuum and open the tap. Air is sucked through the tap and up through the beer, hopefully aerating.

Because this batch is quickly following my previous batch, I used trub (yeast castings from the bottom of the bucket) from that batch. I sanitized two bottles and filled them with trub. After aerating, I poured this on top of the batch.

I guess this combination of thourogh aeration and plentiful yeast worked better than I'd hoped. By the next morning (~12 hours later) this happened:


Overflow

The towel around the bucket is used with a heating pad to keep the beer a nice 70 degrees. As it's good practice to have your yeast work quickly, it's certainly worth a bit of cleanup to have such productive yeast. Next time I'll set up an overflow bowl.

Brewed: 1/29/05
Status: Bottled

Batch 10 - American Pale Ale

Looking for a good "hoppy" beer recipe, the following was recommended by Chris W in the Homebrewersforum yahoo group:

Here is a basic American style "hoppy"pale ale recipe that I used before I went all grain. It's coppery in color (9-12 SRM) with medium bitterness (around 35-40 IBU's) and strong hop aroma!!!
For 5 gallons - 60 minute boil and an OG in the 1.045 to 1.055 range
Extracts:
3lbs light liquid malt extract (I always used Muntons)
2 lbs light dry malt extract (you can use all dry or all liquid - only affects final gravity slightly)
Malts:
1lb Crystal 60L malt
1lb Victory malt
(these last two you just steep the "cracked" grains for 30 minutes in a gallon or so of water - then strain out the grains and add the liquid to your boil kettle. They more or less just add a little color and body. Or you can just use a darker DME or LME if you prefer not to deal with any grains).

HOPS: (any variety - these are my favs)
3/4 oz horizon boil for 45 minutes
1/2 oz centennial for last 15 minutes
1/2 oz centennial for the last 2 minutes
1/2 oz centennial or tetnanger dry hopped in secondary for @5 days

1/2 tsp of Irish moss added at the last 15 minutes of boil.

Primary with wyeast 1056 ale yeast or safale dry ale yeast at about 68-72deg for 4-5 days.
Secondary at 62-66 for about 5-7 days

As I said. There are many recipes out there you can use - or create your own. I've just had good success with this one in the past, and my newer all grain pale ale batches are the equivalent of this.

Good luck!
Chris

My local brew shop didn't carry horizon hops, so I substituted with Chinook. I made a starter from the WYeast 1056 American Ale Yeast that I used in the latest cider batch.

Brewed: 1/25/05
Bottled: 2/20/05 - One Tap-a-Draft bottle, and about 30 glass bottles.
Status: Bottled
Result: A bit light for my tastes. I should have taken OG readings, and I would have been able to tell. Good hoppy flavor though.

Batch 9 - Simple Cider

The last batch of cider was a hit. All 30 bottles are now gone, so I'm starting a 5 gallon batch. Here's my new (and less expensive) recipe:

2 x 6-pack of 16oz pastruized apple juice concentrate, total of around $11 from Costco. In theory, this would make 6 gallons of apple juice but I'm squeezing it into 5 gallons for extra sugar, alcohol and flavor.

2 pounds honey

Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast

Boil the honey in a gallon of reconstituted apple juice. Add this and all (thawed) concentrate to fermenter. Add warm water to fill to 5 gallons. Juice was at around 75F when filled. Add yeast.

12 hours later this was bubbling nicely. Considering my basement is at 54F and this yeast performs best between 60F and 72F I wrapped an electric heat pad (the kind you use for sprained ankles, turned on low) and towel around it. Without the pad it was at 58F and bubbling nicely, but someone mentioned that a low fermentation temp could cause off-flavors, so I turned on the pad. It's now at 68F and still bubbling nicely (bubble every 2-3 seconds as of 1/21/05).

Brewed: 1/16/05
Status: 2/3 of batch bottled in my new Tap-a-Draft bottles on about 2/3/05. Rest of batch bottled in regular bottles on 2/8/05.