Homebrewers of Philadelphia and Suburbs

Club Brew with Karl & Lisa

14 December 1997

• Contributions
  • Lisa & Karl, House, brew kettle, mash tun, propane burners, and all the little bits and pieces.
  • Ted Briggs, Durst and crystal malt, 10 gal kettle
  • Joe Uknalis, Grain mill.
  • Nancy and George of Home Sweet Homebrew donated a pound of hallertauer hops.
  • Peter Hecht, Carapils and Roast Barley
  • There were more hops... Where did they come from?
  • The rest of us pretty much contributed management experience...
• Grain Bill
  • 30 Lbs Durst Pils
  • 5 Lbs Crystal 40
  • 1/2 Lb British Chocolate
  • 1/2 Lb Carapils
  • 1/4 Lb Roast Barley
• Brew Log
  • 30 second proten rest... Oops, forgot that step.
  • 5 minute enzyme rest at 160... Oops, how hot was that water?
  • Ah... back down to 150 but the mash is a little thin (and the lid is floating, but what the heck).
  • Mashed 1 hour at 150.
  • Heated the mash to 163 (or so) and started sparging with 180 degree water.
  • Kevin burns his hand on the sparge water kettle.
  • Collected first two gallons runnings in one pot for the high gravity brew. SG around 1.08?.
  • Split the rest of the runnings between two pots.
  • Boiled each batch 75 min with 1oz Perle/8.2% and 1/2oz Tettanger/4.5% (all pellets).
  • Finished each bath with 8oz Hallertauer/3.4% (total 1lb) for five minutes.
  • Ted burns his hand on one of the boil kettles. I showed him earlier how hard it was to turn off the gas valve from that side with touching the kettle...
  • Chilled down with Karl's cool garden hose counterflow chiller.
  • Hi-grav batch at 1.094. Oops, who said we were making barley wine?
  • Lo-grav batch at 1.080. So much for low. I told you that was a lot of grain for 10 gallons of beer.
  • Pitched 1/2 qt Manayunk Lager Yeast all over the room. Ok, that was pretty fresh yeast.
  • Pitched a cup or so of yeast in each carboy.
  • Topped them off to 6 gallons each. Final gravaties were 1.075 and 1.063 respectivly.
  • Karl reports foaming out the airlock by morning.
  • Karl also grabbed the final runings the next day as the basis for a nice mild. Good job.
• Synopsys
  • Nice medium amber color and malty flavor.
  • Moderate hop bitterness. Could probably have gone even more.
  • Karl was extreemly gracious in letting us walk all over the brewing equipment.
  • The food was excellent.
  • I'm not even going to mention the white elephant gifts. In fact, don't even ask about the butt bank--Let's just say I put my two cents in!
  • Trust me on this on Peter! The #3 will make an excellent future white elephant gift.