Use in tandem with the American Pils (my fathers mustache) recipe in the home brewing book I left pg. 230.
Checklist
- deep fry kettle with insert
- plastic stir (or metal from kitchen)
- thermometer
- scissor
- carboy (big glass 5.5 gallon)
- bung piece
- blow off tube
- deli quart container (one for yeast proofing and one for blow off can be same)
- coffee filters (place multiple on the bottom of the brew kettles insert to help filter the grain when done)
- yeast and hops from fridge — make sure you open with a sanitized scissor! — LOTS of ice — salt
- funnel
DID I SCRUB AND SANITIZE ALL OF THE ABOVE?
Tip
- While brewing, keep gallons of sanitizer solution ready to go. Items can be dunked quickly while in process and will be useful for blowoff tube when complete.
- Proof your yeast! You do this by taking the sanitized deli quart and adding yeast to warm water with a bit of honey or brown sugar. You want it foamed up for this stage.
Steps
- Bring 4 Gallons of water to 122 F on stove and turn off burner
- Ensure insert with coffee filters is in/ add all the base grain and the specialty grain evenly mixed. — keep at 122 F for 20 mins (timer should start as you are mixing it in
- Bring temp up to 145 F and keep for 30 mins ensure temp is as even as possible thru the kettle
- Bring 158 F for 30 mins
- “Mash out” at 170 F for 10 mins. For this you should be removing the insert catching as much grain as possible. You want to take some of the “wort” (the tea you just made) and re-introduce it to the top running it back through the mash. — get all of the grain out, you can use a mesh for this ** quick break if you need it! DID YOU REMEMBER ICE? **
- Bring kettly back to the lightest boil and keep it here
- The moment it boils, add half the hops and stir — Warning! dumping them in may cause a fast and aggressive boile reaction — START THE CLOCK! You should now begin the 60 min timer
- 50 mins in, add half of the remaining hops — go prep the ice bath… plug the sink or a tub and fill with ice, generous amount of salt (lower the freezing point) and some cold water.
- at 60 mins, shut off the heat and add the rest of the hops. IMMEDIATELY take it off the stove and place in the cooling bath. You need this to get to ~68 F AS FAST as possible or the beer will be cloudy and may taste off.
- Do what you can like add cold water and take away the warming water in the clogged sink. You can use the siphon in the kit to get the water out and pull it to the other side of the sink.
- Once at ~70, take a funnel and move the liquid into the carboy (5.5 gal glass). The 5 gallon mark is just under where the bottle tappers. It is denoted by the glass ring design. You can add extra cold water to get it up to 5 gallons as you lost some in the boil. This will also help bring the temp to ~65 F but don’t risk measuring. Any unnecessary touching the liquid after this boil risks contamination.
- Now it is time to add the yeast! You can add it dry but a pro move would be to poof the yeast at the start of the hop boil. You do this by taking the sanitized deli quart and adding yeast to warm water with a bit of honey or brown sugar. You want it foamed up for this stage.
- Place the bung piece in and with a clean finger, block the hole on top. You need to shake, or rock the carboy back and forth for about 5 mins. You want as much air as you can to dissolve into the beer. This provides extra nutrients for the yeast.
- Lastly, connect one end of the blow off tube to the bung piece and the other end should rest submerged in the deli quart container filled with sanitization solution. It’s important to do this for the first 48 hours as fermentaion will be intense, sending large amounts of gas and solid particles into the tube. It would clog the airlock causing it to blow off and will create a mess. After fermentation calms down you can replace this with the airlock.
- Keep in a cool 72-76 F space for 2 weeks when you will be ready to rack into bottles!
