Smooth As a Baby’s Butt Pale Ale

I decided last minute that I wanted to brew up a beer for Shannon’s upcoming baby shower, that will be less of a “traditional” baby shower, and more of a “co-ed hang out and drink some beer” baby shower.  Guys, you’re invited too.

7.5 lbs American 2-row malt

1.5 lbs Vienna malt

0.5 lbs Crystal 40L

0.5 lbs CaraPils

2oz Cascade hops (1 oz @60min, 0.5 oz @30min, 0.25 oz @15min, 0.25 oz @5min)

Nottingham yeast (1L yeast starter)

1tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

First, I want to offer a tip on making yeast starters.  I have used them on the past 2 brews, and I have to say, it definitely makes a difference on the lag time for yeast fermentation.  Happy, healthy yeast results in happy, healthy, tasty beer.  It takes a little extra effort up front, but the reward is worth it.

When adding yeast nutrient to your starter, DO NOT add it during the boil.  I forgot to add it in the beginning before I started boiling, so I thought I would just add a shake of it in while the wort was boiling.  It resulted in a violent reaction in which I lost about 200mL of my starter.  And it made quite a mess.  Now on to the brew day.

It was a little chilly for early November, but I braved the cold to brew Wednesday afternoon.  I poured a jar of black IPA from the keg and got started.  I wanted a beer that was easy to drink and not too complex for the crowd that will be attending the party.  Don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of good beer drinking friends, but I wanted something everyone could enjoy.  So I opted for a simple pale ale.

The Vienna malt will add a little bit of color, along with a toasty or biscuity malt aroma, while the Crystal malt will also impart some color and sweetness.  I typically use CaraPils in all my beers, as it aids in head retention.  We’re aiming for an ABV of around 4-5%.

I mashed in with 3.5 gallons of water at 165F for a mash temp of 152F for 1 hour.

For sparging, I decided to go again with a batch sparge.  I used 5.25 gal at a target temp of 170F.  Although I took a temp at the first sparge and only got 160F, even though I had heated the sparge water to near 200F and measured it around 190 in the liquor tank.  Still need to work on getting the sparge temp where I want it. Also of note, I probably ended up with a little less than 5 gallons.  I think that the cold weather resulted in a higher percentage of boil off.  We’ll monitor this over the winter.

Our Original Gravity came in at 1.044, target was 1.051, but that recipe had a 10.5 lb grain bill, and I tweaked the recipe down to 10 lbs, so I’m pretty happy with the OG. Should get us right around 4.5% ABV.

Chilling the wort was a breeze today, as the temps dropped into the 40’s in time for chilling.  I went from boiling to 76F in 30 minutes!  Again, I constantly agitated the wort with the wort chiller to keep it circulating to maximize heat exchange.  That is one thing I am looking forward to with winter approaching.  Shaving off 30 minutes of chilling time.

I will ferment this one about 2 weeks before kegging and force carbing.  The party is in early December, I don’t have time for dry hopping and secondary fermenting and all that nonsense.  This will have to do.

Typically, it takes about 24 hours for my yeast to really get going when I pitch it directly into the wort from the package.  Here’s what my beer looked like just over 12 hours after pitching my yeast starter.

Update 11/21/12

Kegged Baby’s Butt Pale Ale today, dry hopped in the keg with 1 oz Cascade (see post on dry hopping in keg) set in keezer at 35F and 10 psi.  Will check back in 2 weeks for carb level, shooting for 2.5 volumes CO2.