Brew No.34 – SMaSH – American Pale Ale

Sitting at work today dreaming of brewing beer (as one does) and thought I would take a step back and brew a SMaSH beer. This involves brewing a beer using only one malt and one hop…as this is an APA I have gone with ale malt and cascade, nice and simple…

I will play with the recipe in Beersmith tonight, with a view to brewing something light and sessionable (is that a word?).

25 November 2009 – OK, recipe is as follows:

• 4.5kg Ale Malt
• 20g Cascade hops @ 45 min
• 20g Cascade hops @ 10 min
• Whirfloc @ 10 min
• 20g Cascade hops @ 0 min
• US05 yeast – rehydrated
• 15g Cascade dry hopped after 3 days

Mashed in at 67 deg C left for an hour then batch sparged into the kettle. This was the first time I have used my new marga mill, and clearly I need to work on the settings. My efficiency was only about 65%!!! anyway ended up with an OG of about 1.052, no chilled and will pitch in a day or so.

1st December 2009 – Pitched into the old school plastic fermenter with a glad wrap cover!

Brew No.33 (and 35, 36) – Aussie Pale Ale v4.0

Need to start stocking up for Christmas and New Year, so will brew one of the crowd favourites again, the Aussie Ale. This is going to be pretty much the same as v3.0 so check it out for the recipe….Aussie Pale Ale v3.0 I’ll actually be brewing this three times over the coming weeks, 2 for consumption and 1 for the swap day Thought I’d keep them under the one blog entry as it may get a little repetitive….

17th November 2009 – Sneaked in a quick brew session. All went well, just missed the temp by one degree at 65 deg C which will be fine. Also used 35g or POR instead of 30g in the FWH. Did find the wort to be a tad pale but otherwise a nice clear wort into the cube. Will most likely pitch next week when I keg/bottle the amber.

26th November 2009 – pitched the Aussie PA into the glass carboy tonight, along with the starter I created from two Coopers Sparkling tallies on Monday night (hey, I was looking for an excuse for a drink on Monday anyway ) starter was looking very healthy and the wort was clear as going into the fermenter. Feel good about this one.

Home Grown Hops

I have finally taken the plunge into growing my own hops at home. On the weekend I planted two Pride of Ringwood rhizomes in pots and can’t wait to see them grow! To be honest, it is more for the novelty value at the moment but who knows….will post some pictures later when they start to take off.

20 September 2009 – Woo hoo rhizomes have sprouted and we’re away! Here is a picture of the largest shoot.

13 October 2009 – Ok were are starting to see some growth now! I have built three wires up to the roof of the house, and one of the bines has taken off up one of them. I have been watering every few days and fertilised a couple of days ago as well.

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