Courtesy of Butter, we brewed up another batch of the Black Squirrel Nutter. The first one was such a hit and it was gone far too soon. Everyone agreed that we needed to do that again.
So after sufficient recovery from the previous night’s festivities had happened (and thanks, Jeremy, it was awesome to be included in your birthday festivities) we all trucked down to LHBS and picked up some essentials.
Butter grabbed another nut brown ale kit. I grabbed some C-Brite and 5/16″ tubing. Elizabeth tried to grab the mayorship, but I’m still a few steps ahead on that count. The high point of the trip being when I was presented a “key” to the store in honor of my Foursquare mayorship!
I love that place.
So on to brewing. My notes are pretty sparse, so it was probably a good time. Dan was great on the regulator button–we only flamed out once and that was due to him being pulled in several directions. Doug was appointed to the waterboy position and did yeoman’s work with the wort chiller.
Oh, yes, it was the debut of the wort chiller. 25′ of 5/16″ copper tubing with sweated connectors for garden hoses. PHENOMENAL! We went from full boil to 70˚F in less than 15 minutes. Yeast was pitched and it was burbling away when I peeked in this morning.
For completeness sake:
Fermentables
- 1/2 lb UK Dark Crystal
- 3/8 lb US Dark Chocolate
- 1/8 lb Crisp Roaster 2-Row
- 3.3 lb Hopped LME
- 1 lb Light DME
- 1 lb Amber
DME - 1 lb Muscovado (Dark Brown Sugar)
Hops
- 2 oz UK Fuggle
Mash Schedule
Put specialty grains into the muslin bag and added to 7 gallons water. Heated to 160˚F and then rested for 30 minutes. Removed specialty grains and squeezed bag for maximum extraction. Flame on to near boil then added can of LME, both pounds of DME, and the sugar.
Brought to boil and started timer for 45 minutes. At 45 minutes, put the wort chiller into the kettle to sanitize. Always smart to connect the chiller to the hoses before dropping into the kettle. That bastard gets hot quickly.
With the chiller in the boil, boil another 15 minutes. Add hops and continue boil for another 2 minutes.
Cranked on the faucet and watched the temp of the wort drop to 70˚F in less than 15 minutes. AWESOME!
Drained chilled wort into sanitized bucket and pitched Cooper’s Ale yeast–1 packet dry yeast. Covered and put in the coal room. Looks like almost 6 gallons of beer (whatever happened to my 1.5 gal/hr boiloff?) with an OG of 1.048. This is a few points lower than the predicted 1.050, but we’re also a bit higher on the volume. I think this will all work out wonderfully in the end.
So…like I mentioned, we all want to fast forward about five weeks from now which is when this should be chilled and served. Thanks again Dan and Doug for the help.