Batch 317, Wow! Another delicious pale ale!

 Sometimes known as "pail ail", but not today. Pretty much the same as the previous recipes, a bit more grain this time.

10 gallon batch

22 lb 2-row

13 oz Special B

2 oz crystal 60, because it was there and that's all there is

I've been tracking water temp versus mash temp, and today kind of threw me. I've been getting a drop of about 10 - 15F, but today I got a 20F drop. I was aiming for low 150's, so mashed in with 168F and got 148F. Surprise! I'll take it. I bumped up the Special B for a little added sweetness, but the 148F will make it a little drier than last time. Adjusted pH to 5.3. As usual, recirculation for 15 minutes before both sparges. This really seems to help reduce the amount of trub I end up with in the fermenter.

All Chinook this time:

1 oz at FWH, 60 min, and 15 min, plus 2 tsp Irish Moss at 15.

2 oz at flameout

Same process as last time for chilling, except I put a block of ice in the bucket. This got the temp down to 155F pretty quickly. I've noticed my beer has been very clear during these simple pale ale batches, I think it's partly due to the recirculation during the mash and I'm recirculating again during the chilling. The whole hops make a pretty solid bed in the bottom of the boil kettle, which catches a lot of the trub that could otherwise end up in the fermenter.

I have a water problem at the moment, the water system here is undergoing some upgrades, so I was out of running water to clean up. That's a challenge, for sure! I really need to do a deep clean when the water is back on.

2 jars of yeast from last batch, pitched the following day.

Batch 316, now for something completely different

 Well, not completely different. I was going to 2-row, a little crystal, mostly centennial. I thought I had a lot of crystal, but it turned that what I though was crystal was actually Special B. So I did that. In what is basically a pale ale. The last few batches have been pretty hoppy, so I toned down the hops a little and aimed a little higher on the mash temp so it should come out a little sweeter.

10 gallon batch

20 lb 2-row

8 oz Special B

Mashed with 170F, got 160F in the mash tun, a little higher than I was aiming for, but whatever. Adjusted pH to 5.16. Batch sparge, collected 12.5 gallons in the boil kettle.

1 oz Centennial, FWH

1 oz Columbus, 60 min

1 oz Centennial, 15 min, plus 2 tsp Irish moss

2 oz Centennial, flameout

1 qt yeast from last batch, pitched the next day. I'm essentially doing no-chill as I don't have available water to run my plate chiller. What I'm doing instead is filling a 5 gallon bucket with water (which is actually fairly warm coming out of the pipe), connecting my plate chiller on the wort side, then dropping the plate chiller into the bucket of water. That gets the wort down to about 160F, which is below isomerization temperature for the hop oils, and the bucket water is about the same. Then transfer the wort to the fermenter in the chest freezer. By the next morning, the wort is at pitching temperature.

OG should be about 1.050, I didn't measure

FG should be 1.010

Update 21 Apr 2026: fermentation is done, dropped temp to 35F for cold crash. I'm going to be gone for a few days, so will keg when I get back.

Update 27 Apr 2026: racked to kegs, added gelatin. 

Update 5 May 2026: transfered to a clean keg (to leave the sludge behind) and put it on tap. This stuff is delicious!

Batch 315, just more of the same

 Yet another simple recipe. I just made it up on the spot, no software involved. These recipes I've been making are so simple and taste so good! One new thing in this brew, the 2-row pale ale grain is from Mexico. I've only used US or Canadian grain in the past. I was able to get a couple of bags from Santo Pablo (caution! the link goes to Facebook), a somewhat local Mexican brewery (it's an hour drive, but good beer, good food!) that buys Mexican grain from Puebla.

"Malta de Cebada" just means barley malt.

10 gallon batch

22 lb 2-row 

8 oz Crystal 60

Mashed with 165F, hit 150F in the mash tun. Adjusted pH to 5.4. Standard 10 minute recirculation each batch. One other small change is after running off the second batch into the boil kettle, I let the mash tun continue to drain into a gallon pitcher and I got almost another gallon to add to the boil. 

2 oz Cascade, FWH

2 oz Columbus, 60 minutes

2 oz Cascade plus 2 tsp Irish Moss, 15 minutes

2.5 oz Cascade, flameout.

That is all of my Cascade, so next time it'll be something else.

Same yeast as last batch.

Pretty easy brew day. I'm still trying to figure out a better way to chill the wort. I'm only able to get it down to 160F or so, then put it in the chest freezer to chill to pitching temperature, which takes overnight.

Update 4 April 2026: I got this kegged last Monday, added some gelatin for clarification. Set the CO2 to 30 lbs to carb. Transferred to clean kegs today and put it on tap. It's more bitter than I thought it would be, but it's good. Not quite carbonated enough, but definitely drinkable. FG was 1.010, so fairly dry, this should be much better in the next few days as the carbonation gets to the right place.

Batch 313, Can you believe it?

 Yes, indeed! Yet another pale ale. This one is a actual SMASH beer (single malt and single hop). All Amarillo on this one.

10 gallon batch

20 lb 2-row

I thought about adding some crystal or chocolate for color, I even considered adding a little Special B just because I have some. But I stuck with just the 2-row this time. The grain is from Rahr.

Mashed at 150F, pH adjusted to 5.27. I was aiming for a slightly lower mash temp for a drier beer.

All Amarillo hops, 9.8% AA:

1 oz FWH

2 oz 60 minutes

1 oz 15 minutes + 2 tsp Irish Moss

2 oz flameout

Due to conditions here, I do a minimal chill, then transfer to the fermenter in my chest freezer and let it sit overnight to get down to pitching temperature.

Reused the yeast from 2 batches ago.

Batch 312, even more of the same

 Still going with simple, single hop recipes. These have all been delicious, but I think the Cascade version is the best. So here it is again!

10 gallon batch

20 lb 2-row

.5 lb crystal 60

Mashed at 155F, adjusted pH to 5.3, collected 12.5 gallons in the boil kettle. I did 13 gallons last time, and had more than would fit in the kegs and more yeast/trub than would fit in 3 quart jars.

60 minute boil with all Cascade hops:

1 oz FWH

2 oz 60 min

2 oz 15 min + Irish Moss

2 oz flameout

I still don't have a good way to chill the wort, so it went into the fermenter at about 165F and will pitch the yeast tomorrow.

24 Dec 2025: pitched the yeast, 2 jars from last batch. I forgot to get an OG reading, but it will still be beer.

Batch 311, more pale ale!

 Here's another one, just like the other one, all Chinook this time.

10 lb batch

20 lb 2-row

.5 lb Crystal 60

Mashed at 155F, adjusted pH to 5.3. Recirc 15 minutes first batch, 10 minutes 2nd batch. Collected 13 gallons in the boil kettle.

All Chinook, 12.6% AA

1 oz FWH

2 oz 60 minutes

2 oz flameout

Reused yeast from last batch, one jar.

Update 4 Dec 2025, I don't see any yeast activity, there probably is, but I went ahead an pitched a second jar of yeast.

Update 5 Dec 2025, lots of yeast activity today.

Batch 310, yet another pale ale

 I'm continuing with the series of simple yet delicious pale ales. This one is very similar to the last few batches. I'm out of Cascade, so I used Citra in this one. Citra has a higher AA so I used a little less.

10 gallon batch

20 lb 2-row

1 lb wheat (now I'm out)

1/2 lb Crystal 60

No chocolate in this one just to change things up a little. Mashed with 8 gallons at 170F which put the mash at 158F, a little higher than I wanted. Adjusted pH to 5.3. Started recirculation at 45 minutes for 15 minutes, ran off 5 gallons to the boil kettle. Used 7 gallons for second batch, recirculated for 15 minutes, then to the boil kettle for a total of 12 gallons for the boil.

60 minute boil, all Citra hops, 12.6% AA.

1 oz Citra, FWH

2 oz Citra, 60 minutes

2 tsp Irish moss, 15 minutes

2 oz Citra, 5 minutes

I don't have a good chilling system yet, the lack of water and drainage means I can't really use my plate chiller. What I did was connect the plate chiller as usual for the wort to flow through, then immerses the chiller into a bucket of water and pumped the wort through and back into the boil kettle. This dropped the temp from boiling to about 170F fairly quickly, then I ran the wort into the fermenter inside the chest freezer. I let it sit overnight, then the temperature was down to 65F and I pitched all the yeast from the last batch.

OG: 1.052 actual

Batch 309, doing it again

Big move is finally over. House is sold, all my good brewing stuff is now at our place in Mexico. First batch here with this equipment. I have to say, the brew day went very well. There was a minor issue having the power turned on to my garage, where I brew. 

This batch really is the same as the last 2 batches, so again, I'm not going to repeat myself, just detail the differences:

I had to toss all my old yeast for the move, so I picked up 2 packs of White Labs WP-01, California Ale yeast. I made a starter since I now have my stir plate here. My only good temperature controlled space is my little chest freezer, so I did the starter in there. That also gets the temp set for fermenting, so win/win.

Looking at my notes, the yeast was the only real difference. Good brew day!

13 Oct 2025 - gravity was down to 1.011 two days ago, so I turned the temp down to 35F for cold crash. Kegged it today and added gelatin for clearing. Harvested the yeast, I got two really nice looking quart jars. Both kegs are in the kegerator getting some CO2. Should be drinkable in a couple of days.

Batch 307, berry cider

Copy and paste from batch 305... same-o, same-o 

I made a cider along with making batch 306, and as usual, forgot to write anything down about it. This is the usual recipe:

11 cans frozen apple juice

1 gallon wort from batch 306

water to make 4 gallons

To get the 1 gallon of wort, after draining the mash tun into the boil kettle, I scoop out the grain into a double bucket, the inner bucket has holes drilled into the bottom so the wet grain drains into the outer bucket. This almost always gives me right at a gallon of wort that would otherwise be tossed into the trash. 

Batch 306, another anonymous pale ale

 Just another pale ale, non-descript, nothing special, except for the little screw-up at the end.

10 gallon batch

20 lb pils

1 lb white wheat

.5 lb crystal 60

1 oz chocolate

Mashed with 8 gallons, adjusted pH to 5.3. Batch sparge, 12 gallons in boil kettle.

All Cascade hops again since I still have a couple of pounds of them.

1 oz FWH

3 oz 60 minutes

1 oz 20 minutes

2 oz flameout, except when I was all done and cleaning up, I found the bag of flameout hops sitting on the work bench.

Wyeast 1272 , 2 new packs.

Since I forgot the flameout hops, I added them 4 days later as dry hops.

Batch 305, Berry cider

 I made a cider along with making batch 304, and as usual, forgot to write anything down about it. This is the usual recipe:

11 cans frozen apple juice

1 gallon wort from batch 304

water to make 4 gallons

To get the 1 gallon of wort, after draining the mash tun into the boil kettle, I scoop out the grain into a double bucket, the inner bucket has holes drilled into the bottom so the wet grain drains into the outer bucket. This almost always gives me right at a gallon of wort that would otherwise be tossed into the trash. 

Update 15 June 2025, blended 3 lbs of frozen mixed berries with a gallon of water and added to the fermenter. Checking my notes, sometimes it's a 3 lb bag, sometimes 4 lbs, I don't think it really matters too much.

Update 18 June 2025, cold crash to35F.

Batch 304, a pale ale

 I'm back in the real world, for now. I sure do like my brew set up here, things are in the right place, the water is good, equipment is great, so it was a pretty nice brew day. My only concern is the yeast, I didn't make the hour long trip to the "local" homebrew store to by new, so I made a starter from yeast from last fall. I built it up over 3 days and I tasted it before I pitched it, no off flavors that I could tell.

10 gallon batch

This is made out of what I had on hand, which was a lot of base malt and not so much specialty, like I'm completely out of crystal of any shade. Again, I didn't want to make that long drive to the homebrew store.

5 lb, 5 oz 2-row, all that I had

1 lb white wheat

14 lb, 12 oz pilsner, I have lots of this

7 oz biscuit, all that I had, and why not?

2 oz chocolate malt, all that I had, and a little color is good

Mashed at some temperature around 150 - 155F, I forgot to check when I mashed in, but I did see it was about 152F when I started recirculation. pH adjusted to 5.38.

Hops are all Cascade for this recipe because I have a lot on hand, like 2 pounds from last years crop. 90 minute boil.

1 oz FWH

3 oz 60 minutes

1 oz 20 minutes

2 tsp Irish moss 15 minutes

2 oz at flameout

I was cleaning things since I hadn't been in the beer shed in months, and thought I had some time, but I still got a boil-over. Crap. A little messy, but whatever. The rest of the boil went well. I'm not sure if this is a problem or not, but I started chilling then we had guests arrive in the middle. After about an hour of visiting, I excused myself and the wort was right at pitching temperature. I'm wondering how hoppy this will be since the hops had been in for almost 3 hours.

Another thing to mention, for my future reference (Hi Dale!), is that the chest freezer that I use to fermenting has died, so I needed to clean out my fridge in the beer shed. I use that for conditioning, mostly, it holds 6 kegs and I do have 2 taps on it. It's the only other cooling device that I have that I can ferment in. So that was part of the "cleaning things" that I mentioned, there were several kegs in there from last year that were of questionable flavor -- the basil IPA was still good, although the hops had dropped off considerably, the Panama Red was totally sour, the Leeser had a surprisingly good green apple flavor, the Red Seal was toast, the Dunkel was good, but gone in 2 days.

Details from Brewtarget, which has been almost useless with the last update. Really dumb things, like there is a choice on where to add the hops, you can add them to the mash, the boil, the fermenter, or the package. Default should be to the boil, but no, it's to the mash. Weird, mash hops are almost never heard of now.

OG: 1.050 (didn't do an actual, there were those guests that I metioned)

FG: 1.013

ABV: 4.8

IBU: 44.3

SRM: 6.2 (probably would be out of spec if I hadn't added the chocolate)

Batch 303, a crap beer

 It was supposed to be a Panama Red. I thought I had my process down, finally, but fucked up on dumping this batch on top of the yeast cake from the last batch, which was also crap. It turns out the yeast had gone bad, so I had 2 bad batches in a row. I'm not even going to list the whole story, as it just sucked. That, and I ran out of CO2, and the only place I know here in Baja to get it doesn't handle my little 5 lb tank, just the 20 pounders.

Batch 302, Brown Ale

I've decided what I don't care for about the beers I've been making recently are the hops. I don't think I'm getting good flavors out of the pellets. I'm using pellets since they keep well and I don't have the cold storage space for leaf pellets. I'm also a little concerned about hauling leaf hops across the border, but my neighbor says they do it regularly, so I'll give that a try next year.

Here's a 5 gallon batch of brown ale, copied from BrewTarget:

Brown Ale - American Brown Ale (10C)

Date 3/2/25

Batch Size 5.750 gal 

Boil Size 6.500 gal

Boil Time 60.000 min Efficiency 70

OG 1.050 sg 

FG 1.013 sg

ABV 5.0% 

IBU 21.9 (Tinseth)

Color 16.2 srm (Morey)

Fermentables

Pale Malt (2 Row) US Grain 9.000 lb

Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L Grain 12.000 oz

Biscuit Malt Grain 8.000 oz

Chocolate Malt (US) Grain 4.000 oz

Hops

Mount Hood 5.5% 0.700 oz Boil 60.000 min Pellet 14.6

Mount Hood 5.5% 0.700 oz Boil 15.000 min Pellet 7.2

Yeast

1272 - American Ale II

25 Mar 2025: fuck. It turns out the yeast had gone bad and I didn't notice, this beer just sucked. Even worse, I kegged this while brewing the next batch and dumped the new beer (Panama Red) on top of the yeast cake. Two bad batches in a row. Fuck.

Batch 301, same as last time

Same as last time, just working on process.

5 gallon batch

11 lb. 2-row

8 oz Biscuit

Mashed at 156F for 60 minutes, started recirc at 45. Did math to decide how much for the second sparge, apparently I can still do math. I did nothing about the pH.

1 oz Mosaic, FWH

1 tsp Irish Moss, 15 min

1 oz Cascade, 5 min

1 oz Mt Hood, 5 min

60 minute boil, collected 5.5 gallons in the fermenter, yay!

Wyeast 1272 from last batch.

Batch 300, Yet Another Pale Ale

 Batch 300! Must be an important milestone or something.

Anyway, just another pale ale, nothing special.

5 gallon batch

11 lb. 2-row

8 oz Biscuit

Mashed at 156F for 60 minutes, started recirc at 45. Did math to decide how much for the second sparge, apparently I can still do math. I did nothing about the pH.

1 oz Mosaic, FWH

1 tsp Irish Moss, 15 min

1 oz Cascade, 5 min

1 oz Mt Hood, 5 min

60 minute boil, collected 5.5 gallons in the fermenter, yay!

Wyeast 1272 from last batch.

Batch 299, Amber Ale

 Back in Baja, first brew. It went pretty well, overall. I was going to brew on Thursday, but there was a water leak on Wednesday, which took until Friday to fix. Anyway, it was a good brew day, volumes and numbers came out as expected.

5 gallon batch

12 lb 2-row

8 oz crystal 60

4 oz biscuit

2 oz chocolate

I forgot to take a temp on the mash, but the mash water was at 170F, so I'm guessing I hit mid-150s. I did not adjust the pH, all I have here is the little test strips and they don't seem accurate at all. Did math, collected 6.5 gallons.

60 minute boil

1 oz Mosaic, 12.5% AA, 60 min

1 oz Mosaic, 12.5% AA, 5 min

0.8 oz Citrs, 12%AA, 5 min

That's the last of the Citra that I have, hence the odd amount.

Wyeast 1272 that I brought down to Baja from my last brew.

Since water is at a premium here, I didn't chill, rather, I filled the fermenter bucket and put it in the freezer over night, then pitched this morning.

Batch 298, Panama Red

 Finally! It seems like ages since I've been able to brew a decent Panama Red. We're packing up for a trip, leaving tomorrow for a few days, but I wanted to get this brew in so it could ferment while we're gone. It should be done when we get back.

It was a rough brew day, the temperature here peaked at about 104F (40C for you more normal minded peeps) , so the brew shed was HOT!. Two window fans, plus the ceiling fan, but still, very HOT!

Some work to do today, needed to get the last batch into kegs, that was 3 kegs to clean and fill (2 Bell's, 1 berry cider). Moved a  lot of kegs around, there were some emptied in the brew shed and the garage, and of course, the brewing.

10 gallon batch 

22.25 lb 2-row

1.5 lb Crystal 60

1.5 lb White wheat

4 oz Chocolate malt

Mashed at 154F, adjusted pH to 5.23 (almost fucked that up, I was measuring a teaspoon over the mash tun and the bottle slipped. The meter said 4.3 then as I stirred, it came up to 5.23, whew!) 12 gallons in the boil kettle.

90 minute boil

2 oz Mt Hood, FWH, these were pellets, I usually use leaf

2 oz Centennial, 60 min

2 oz Cascade, 30 min

2 oz Cascade, 5 min

2 oz Mt Hood, 5 min (pellets again, we'll see, I tend to not like pellets as much as whole cones)

Wyeast 1272 from last batch

The usual stats on this, hmm, where are they?

Batch 297, Bell's Two Hearted clone and Berry Cider

 I ordered some hops on line, and got way more than I ordered. I received 3 pounds of Centennial, so I thought to do this recipe since it's all Centennial. I've made this before, and it's always come out pretty good. As brew days go, this one kind of sucked: 

• my carbon water filter burst and turned the sparge water black, so had to dump that and start over
• my mill ( 3 roller monster mill) got jammed, so I had to take it apart and clean and adjust the gap
• I was cleaning stuff and not watching the boil kettle, so I had a boil over
• the Centennial are pellets, and that nifty thing I use to put the pellets in nylon stockings is in Baja, so made a new one
• the little tablet that I use to stream music to the beer shed was dead. Looks like it's going to be okay, though

Oh, and in the end, I missed the OG by 5 points.

10 gallon batch

27 lb 2-row

12 oz Crystal 60

Mash at 148F, adjusted pH to 5.2, collected 5 gallons, second sparge got 7 gallons for 12 gallons in the boil kettle.

2.5 oz Centennial, 60 min

2.5 oz Centennial, 30 min

5 oz Centennial, 5 min

60 minute boil. 

Wyeast 1272 from last batch, so very fresh yeast.

OG: 1.060, 1.056 actual

FG: 1.016

ABV: 6.1%

SRM: 6.5

IBU: 77

I also made a berry cider at the same time, 5 gallons, the usual recipe.

Batch 296, A Red Seal clone

 Red Seal is one of my favorite beers, so I'm attempting a clone. I found this clone recipe somewhere on the internet - actually, I found several and sort of combined them to come up with this recipe.

10 gallon batch - I'm back north, so I'm brewing on my 10 gallon system in the shed in my backyard.

23 lb 2-row

1 lb 6 oz Crystal 60

1.6 oz Roasted barly

7 oz wheat, because that's all I had

Mashed at 154F with 8 gallons, collected 4 gallons, sparged with an additional 8 gallons.

2.5 oz Centennial, 60 min

1.5 oz Centennial, 10 min

2.5 oz Cascade, 10 min

90 minute boil. After fermentation, my plan is to cold crash, transfer the beer to another fermenter, and dry hop with 1 oz Cascade for a day or so.

Wyeast 1272, American Ale II.

OG: 1.055, hit it dead on

FG: 1.014

ABV: 5.5%

IBU: 41

SRM: 11.2

Calories/12 oz: 181