Making the Elk Brew

All,

So ScottThornley was the lucky winner of the case of custom beer at ELK.  We got a hold of each other and

hashed out what he wanted.  He was in the mood for a nice hoppy IPA with a big mouthfeel.  We bounced some

ideas back and forth (he is a sometimes homebrewer too) and I got to work.  I had time this last weekend and

brewed up the beer.  I took a few shots so I could share the brewing process with you folks in hopes of

spuring some interest in homebrewing.

The first thing is to set the grain bill (you do know that beer is fermented grain right? )  Given that

Scott was looking for a nice big mouthfeel I tossed in a bunch of specialty grains for this purpose.  This is

all barley malt, just processed differently to get different characteristics.  Here is the grain bill, this

is for a 5.5 gallon batch.

9# Gambrinus Pale Malt (this is the base malt)
1# Cara Munich (for color and head retention)
1# Munich (color and mouthfeel)
1# Carahell malt (mouthfeel, deeper flavor)
1# CaraPils (Head retention)
2# 60l crystal malt (color and caramel flavor)

This will result in a wort of about 1.070 specific gravity (a measure of sugar in the wort which will

translate to alcohol and will result in a beer with about 7.75% ABV....now that is brain feel!)

To balance out this gravity we need to put in a big load of hops, and especially as Scott told me to up

whatever hop bill I planned by 25%.  Boy wanted some hops!  That's all good here at Brew Your Face Brewery,

we aim to please.  Here is the hop bill

1oz Pacific Gem (13.4% alpha)
1oz English Challenger (7.86% alpha)
Both at the boil.

30 minutes into the boil
1oz Target (9.8% alpha)

50 minutes into the boil
1oz American Cascade (2.3% alpha)

All hops were pellets and dumped right into the boil kettle.  Boil lasted 60 minutes.  Yeast pitched was

White Labs California Ale (the yeast used in Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) from a slurry from my last batch. 

Fermentation should go for about a week before I transfer to secondary and dry hop with an oz. of EK

Goldings.  That will give us 6 different malts and 5 different hops for an outstanding brew worthing of the

ELK IPA name.

Here is the brewing process:  First off is to weigh and mix all the grains in preparation for milling.  Here

is the sack of grain..




This grain needs to be milled so we can mash it.  Basically the grain is a bunch of starch and we need to

convert that starch to fermentable sugar.  The maltster has done some of the work for us by malting the grain

which is basically sprouting and drying it.  This creates a large amount of enzymes that will convert the

starch to sugar.  All we do as brewers is crack open the malt and soak it in hot water which allows the

enzymes to convert the starch to sugar in the mash.  We here at BYFB believe in the old school hand cranked

grain mill (feel free to donate the money for us to upgrade! ).




The grain goes through the mill to create the grist.  The object is to crack the kernels but leave the husks

intact.  Here is a shot of what we are looking for.




After hand cranking through 15# of grain, time to sip some homebrew!  Here is the sack of grist.




Now that we have the grist, we add it to ~ 5 gallons or so of 172 degree water to create the mash.  We are

shooting for a final temperature of 150-152 degrees.  1 hour at this temp and the starch is fully converted

to sugar.  Here is the mash.  I use a coleman cooler chest as a mash tun.  It holds temperature very well.  I

use a cPVC manifold in the bottom to drain the wort.




I had a number of cool assistant brewers on Saturday.  Here is one of them.  This is a male Anna's

Hummingbird.  I get about 5-6 that rotate on this feeder, 2 females and 3 or 4 males.




After the mash, we need drain off the wort and sparge the grains.  I fly sparge, which means that I

constantly replace water on the grain bed as I am drawing off the wort in order to get the maximum extraction

of sugar from the grain.  First things first, which is recirculating the wort to create the grain bed called

vorlaff.  Here is the top of the grain bed cleared.




The sparge takes about an hour as I collect 6.5 gallons of wort.




Now we need to boil the wort to sterilize it and extract the hops.




After the boil we need to chill the wort down to pitching temperatures as quickly as possible.  I use a

hommade immersion chiller (a coil of copper tubing that I flow water through).




After the wort is chilled, I through in an aquarium airstone and areate it for about 30-60 minutes and chuck

in the yeast (pitch). 

So, that is where we are at with the beer right now.  It fermented furiously during the first 2 days (lots

and lots of sugar for the yeast to eat) and I was just able to replace the blow off tube with an airlock

today.

I will post as things progress.

For posterity the OG was 1.064 (a little lower than I was shooting for but I had a larger volume of wort...)
The IBUs were in the 97 range.

Should be a great beer.

MolBasser

Yee haw!

Thanks again Chris. I'm really looking forward to this. I'm thinking about cracking open my first bottle on Thanksgiving, but saving the rest for next Spring. It should have matured nicely by then.

Scott

dude, that is some gnarley barley. I don't know about homebrewin, but I am down for homedrinkin and reading about
homebrewin, so thanks!

I'm guessing thornley will be a happy man.

J

Hey...I thought it was going to be made from scratch???  Its OBVIOUS you didn't grow that grain yourself!!

Dude, that is 100 pah-cent odeskoo!  Should be delicious.   

If you show at B@MII you will get to sample 3 of my brews.

MolBasser

Racked the beer off of primary over the weekend.  A little longer than I usually ferment primary but at least it won't blow off to much of the dry hop aroma.

It had fermented from 1.064 OG down to about 1.011 FG which makes it 7% ABV.

Here are some shots:

The top of the fermented beer.  Note that the krausen is completely gone.





Here is the beer being racked into secondary.  Note the load of dry hops!




Just a few more weeks, then force carbing and bottling (or natural conditioning as dictated by the winner).

MolBasser

That is what I am talking ABOUT!

Woot!!!

When I racked the brew, I had a little bit left over that wouldn't fit in the carboy so I put it in a bottle and force carbed it.

It settled out clear and with remarkably little chill haze, almost none.  Carbing was fine and the brew is over the top.

Definately one of the best beers that I have made, without doubt the clearest at refrigerated temperatures.

Hops are young (heck, the beer is only 2 1/2 weeks old) and should age perfectly.  The dry hopping will round out the nose into ambrosia!

Scott, I'm stoked for you and bummed for me!!

Good news is that I should have some (very little) of it to distibute at Bendo....

MolBasser

MMMmmmmmm.......



The color is way darker in the pic (no flash) the actuall color is sort of a reddish copper.  Not too dark.

Man this beer is gonna be epic with the dry hop and aging!

MolBasser

Ok, so maybe I'll wait until Halloween, and hope there's some left by Christmas

And if I can't wait until Halloween, there's always Columbus Day. And a large portion of the company I work for is Israeli, so there's always Rosh Hoshana...

Scott

LOL!!

MolBasser

That is one cool looking set-up Mol.
Hope I am fortunate to get a little taste at Mendo. Mouth is already watering just thinking about it. I might have to go crack a store bought brew right now just to satisfy my craving.

That is one cool looking set-up Mol.
Hope I am fortunate to get a little taste at Mendo. Mouth is already watering just thinking about it. I might have to go crack a store bought brew right now just to satisfy my craving.

I will have 3 beers at mendo.

An almost full 5 gallon keg of ESB (very good)
12 pack of oatmeal imperial stout (super good)
The remainders of the elk IPA that I don't give to Scott (probably about 20 beers).

I sort of drank the IIPA that I was gonna bring..... 

MolBasser

Guess my ETA will have to be earlier than expected now.

Mol..

What time do you plan to arrive on friday.  I can help carry the keg to its location.

John

I hope to be at the lake ~2-3pm on Friday.

MolBasser