Saturday, January 3, 2009

Batch 69, Celebration Ale

My brew club does a group brew during the first week of January. This year it was on Jan 3, and we brewed a Celebration Ale clone.

11 gallon batch.

16.7 lbs Great Western 2-row
6.67 lbs Canadian 2-row
1.0 lbs Carapils
2.0 lbs Carastan
1.0 lbs Crystal 80
Mash at 154F for 60 min

Hops, 90 min boil:
1.83 oz Chinook, 60 min
1.67 oz Cascade, 20 & 10 min
0.94 oz Centennial, 20 & 10 min

Dry hop:
1 oz Cascade
1 oz Centennial

recipe said Wyeast 1056, but I used my regular 1272.

OG: 1.064
FG: 1.014
SRM: 11
IBU: 63
ABV: 6.4%

Kegged Jan 23, and what a mess! I use a "jumper" hose for tranfering, that is, a hose that connects 'out' to 'out' on my kegs. Usually there is enough natural carbonation to get the siphon going, and there was for this keg. Once the siphon gets going, I pop the top so it will continue. This is the first time I've ever had beer foam out of the top, and it was thick, like the junk the usually collects on the bottom. I may transfer this one more time to get better clarity, it looked hazy during the transfer. I did not do a dry hop, mostly because I'm out of Centennial (I donated the last I had to the group brew). I may do a dry hop later, if I do one more transfer.

March 17 -- this beer still isn't very good. It's cloudy and flavorless. I added an ounce of Cascade last weekend, but still the flavor is dismal. It's drinkable, but I really can't say it's any better than that.