Batch #3 - Red/Amber Ale.

Red Ale/Amber Ale Recipe.

Batch Size: 5.5 Gallons. Wort Size: 5.5 Gallons.
Preboil Wort Size: 6.47 Gallons.
Grain: .5 Lbs Crystal 80L, 0.13 Lbs Roasted Barley, 0.13 Lbs Special B Malt
Malt: 6 Lbs Muntons DME - Light
Hops: 2 oz Cascade Hops
Yeast: Danstar Nottingham Dry Yeast

Modifications:
We used two packs of Nottingham Dry Yeast. This was recomended by the owner of Point Brew Supply and O'so brewery. He believes adding another pack of yeast at pitch is more effective than using an oxygen stone and pure oxygen injection into the wort pre-pitch.

New additions:
We purchased a propane burner and an immersion Chiller for new batches.

Brewing Notes:
- Brewed this batch in the garage.
- Added all 6.5 Gallons of water to the brew pot to start.
- The grinder at Point Brew Supply died for the guy in front of April when she was in line to grind, so we grount our grains at home using the Magic Bullet and pulsing to crack the grain.
- Bring the heat up on the batch was MUCH faster this time. It took a short 15 minutes (or so) to bring up the heat to the initial 150degrees for steeping the grain.
- Grain steep was 30 minutes as the recipe called for.
- After steep, once again, the time to bring up to boil was remarkably quick! I love the new burner!
- We had minor boil-over when we added the malt-extract to the batch. We controlled with stirring, reducing heat, and spray bottles full of cold drinking water.
- Once we were up to boil again and after the break, we added the hops, 1oz Cascade, and started the 60 minute boil timer.
- We added the last 1oz Cascade hops at 20 minutes remaining on the boil.
- Once the boil was complete, we used the immersion chiller to cool the wort. This was WONDERFUL! We cooled down to 70 degrees in approxmately 20 minutes.
- Once cool, we transferred into a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. We let it sit inside, covered while we cleaned up and came in to pitch the yeast. We poured both packs of nottingham yeast right in without solution and stirred in.
- Wort gravity before pitching the yeast: 1.042

Additional notes:
Brewing outside in the cold kind of sucks. It's a huge time-saver, but our garage needs a little help to make doing this easier even in warmer weather. With the weather cold enough, we noticed that the steam from the boil condenses much faster and comes down as a fine mist, getting into the wort again.

Bottling notes:
We are bottling on 11/28, two weeks after the start of fermenting.
- Pre bottling gravity: 1.010
With a starting gravity of 1.042 and a finish of 1.010, we should have an alcohol content of 4.9% abv.
- It took quite a while this time (nearly an hour) for the temperature of the sugar solution to drop to 70 degrees.