Honey Pale Ale Update

Here is a quick run down of how the fermentation has gone with the honey pale ale:

• the airlock pressurized 20mins after being installed and was activity bubbling within 2.5hrs. The safebrew t-58 yeast really moves fast
• the next morning the airlock was going off like a machine gun and co2 was pumpin yeast gunk throughout the carboy
• by day 3 the airlock activity had reduced greatly and all the gunk settled out at the bottom of the carboy
• on day seven I racked to the secondary which you will see below
  

Before dinner I racked the ale from the primary into the secondary. It has been exactly one week since brew day so it was time. The ale went into my new 11.5L(3 gal) carboy. I decided on the small carboy for a few reasons, lower cost to brew, I can brew more variety in a shorter time and it still provides a case and a half of beer. In the future I would like to do full 18.9 L (5gal) batches through. My thought is the 18.9L carboy would be nice for lighter beers and the 11.5L carboy would be nice for bigger beers.

I took a gravity sample and it came out at 1.022. I am not sure how much lower it will end up but I am looking for 1.010 - 1.008 before bottling.

After racking I had about 2L (0.5gal) that did not fit in the secondary so it was chilled in the fridge and now is being tasted. It tastes just like beer! Pretty cool result for my first crack at beer brewing. Its flavor is quite nice and clean with a good hop bitterness. Alcohol content at the moment is about 3.75% so it has a little ways to go and it is still needs to clear out. So far so good though.

I will secondary for 2 weeks and then proceed to prime and bottle. I will then bottle age for a couple weeks before consuming.

Honey Pale Ale Brew Day

Thursday evening I brewed my first beer, a partial mash honey pale ale. The recipe can be found at the following link. The process went well but it did end up take 4 hours and it certainly was a cooking marathon. I took lots of picture of the process so please bear with me:

I brought 15 liters (4 gal) of water to 74c (165f)

Added all the grain and gave it a good stir.

I then added ice until the temp lowered to mash temp of 65-68c (150-155f)

With the temp at the mash range I then maintained it for 60 minutes.

After the mash I strained the grain out with
a cheese cloth lined colander into a bucket.

The grain was then raised for a while so all the wort drainer out.

It then went back into the now rinsed pot, the pale DME was stirred in and then it was heated to a boil.

This was taken when the hot break occurred about 20 min after turning the heat on. At this point I set the timer for 60minutes and maintained the boil.

This was taken after the first hops addition.
0.5oz cascade hops was added at :60, :30 & :15

At :01 of the boil I added the last 0.5oz cascade hops
and the pound of honey.

With the boil done the pot went into an ice bath and was quickly brought to 21 c (70f).

It was then stained into a bucket. I tried a few things here. First with cheese cloth which quickly clogged then just with a stainer. Lots of hop reside was missed. Not sure if this is a problem? I guess I can separated it out when I rack to the secondary.

I then aerated the wort really well by transferring it between the pot & bucket about 5 times.

With that done it went into a carboy and then I topped it with water to 11.5 liters (3gals) and mixed well.

I then took a gravity sample which ended up being 1.050. After that the yeast was pitched into the carboy.

Finally here it is completed and on its way to becoming ale.

My Next Brew

With the Hard Cider bottled I am moving on to my next brew. This will be my first attempt at brewing beer and I will use a partial mash recipe shared by Red @ red-icculus.com. I was not able to source all the original ingredients and I added honey so the recipe is a bit of a hybrid now. I also decided to reduce the batch to 11.5 liters(3 gal). Here goes the recipe:

Honey Pale Ale

2 lbs Pale Ale Malt
2 lbs Honey Malt
1 lb Pale DME
1 lb Buckwheat Honey
2 oz Cascade Hops
1 oz Saaz Hops
Safbrew T-58 Yeast

• Heat 11.5 liters of water to 65-68c(150-155f), add grain and mash for 60 minutes well maintaining the temp.
• Strain grain out, add DME and bring to boil until hot break occurs then start adding hops.
• 0.5 oz of cascade at :60, :30, :15 and at :01 add the last 0.5 oz cascade and honey
• cool wort to 21c(70f) in an ice water bath and then strain into the carboy
• top up with water to about 12.5 liters, leaving extra for racking loss and aerate.
• pitch rehydrated yeast, install airlock and allow to ferment for 1-2 weeks.
• transfer to a 11.5 liter carboy, leaving little air space and install airlock
• allow to secondary for 1-2 weeks, dry hopping with the 1oz Saaz hops 5-7 day before fermentation is done.

This is my plan and I hope everything goes well. I am planning on starting the ale some evening this week. Pictures of the process will fallow soon after. Once the ale has fermented out I will be bottling in 750ml (25oz) champagne bottle with 29mm crowns.

At the following link are a bunch of pictures of brew day!