Homebrewing Rounds 3 & 4

After a brief hiatus for the holiday's, being busy in general and a little time for some beer brewing research, the last 2 weekends I have brewed small batches (1 gallon each) of beer. These 2 were my first attempt at a all-grain recipe. There really wasn't much difference in the process other than the straining and sparging of the grains.

The first beer was a recipe I took from the Brooklyn Brew Shop's book, Beer Making Book, called Everyday I.P.A. It was almost the exact same recipe I followed for my first I.P.A. that I bought from Listermann Brewing here in Cincinnati. It was nice just to get the ingredients and follow along the directions to get me back into the flow of beer brewing.

This past weekend, I decided to try my first from scratch recipe. I wanted to try making a Brown/Amber ale that was a little more bitter and hoppy than the 3 previous beers I had brewed. I researched a few recipes and found some similarities and principles for what I was going for. I called up my buddy Trevor, over at Crosier Lane Homebrew to see if he wanted to hit up Listermann to gather our ingredients (Trevor was planning a new brew himself).


My basic recipe (from memory):

86% American 2 Row
10% Crystal Malt 40L
4% Chocolate Malt
Columbus Hops
Cascade Hops

60 Minute mash, 60 Minute boil with Hop adds at Boil, 15/30/45/55/Cool.

The house was filled with an overly bitter aroma after the Columbus hops were added, probably way to much, but only a few weeks will tell if that rings true or not.

I was pretty stoked try my own recipe (I took a crazy amount of notes) and I know that I want to try to tweak this until I get it perfect, the unknown of what it will taste like and the subsequent experimentation is truly exciting.

Happy Drinking!