March Brewday – Pale Ale
I didn’t get to brew on the holiday in February like I had hoped. I did keg the MBL though. My study group decided to get together on the holiday to go over some case studies we were working on. The last few weeks I’ve been neck deep in case studies and projects and I’ve been struggling just to keep my head above water. Thankfully, we finished our quarter yesterday and today I’m brewing!
I slept in pretty late since I’ve been getting hardly any sleep for the last week or so, and finally got started around noon.
I decided to go with a pale ale today. So far in 2009 I’ve been in a session beer kind of mood and I’m sticking with that for this beer. It may be a bit on the big side for a session beer, but I still think it qualifies. I’m also using up some hops that have been in my freezer for a while.
12:55 – Mashed in @ 151°F and 5.25pH. Then took off to go get more propane.
14:48 – Basically done sparging, wort’s at about 180°F and I’m getting back outside so I don’t have another boilover.
15:15 – Added my 60 minute hops – some Chinook pellets. Time to start cleaning.
14:18 – Killed the burner and threw in my knockout hops. I won’t be starting the chiller for a few more minutes. This is a strategy that I tried once a long time ago with a pale ale and it came out with a hop flavor and aroma that I really liked, so I’ve stuck with it. I like to let the knockout hops sit for between 15-30 minutes before starting the chiller. I’ll probably be on the short side of that today.
14:32 – Started the chiller…
17:09 – Just got back from the store to grab some ice to run through my immersion chiller. It’s at 90ºF now.
17:35 - So much for this being nice session beer. I just took my grvity reding nd it showed tht I’m t 1.060. Bummer, but mybe I finlly fixed my efficiency problem with my new drill. Oh, nd one of the keys on my keybord isn’t working for some reson … cn you guess which one?? 