Sunday, January 6, 2008

Again, no posts

Hey Hey Hey.

Well, last week Liz's brother got married. As a wedding present I gave them a case of English Barley wine. I bottled it the day of the ceremony, with explicit instructions that they are not to open it for one year. (plus it was a good excuse to make a barley wine...and for me to keep the remaining case resulting from the batch.) For christman i made everyone a Chocolate Cherry stout to give away 6 packs. For thanksgiving I made a spiced pumpkin beer. Right now on tap at home I've got an altbier (a billy original recipe) with an english IPA (another original recipe) waiting on deck as soon as i empty the altbier keg. So thankfully, while my blogging has slowed, my brewing has not.


Anyway, today i am brewing up a batch for the next BeerQuest contest at Lazlo's on February 17th (ALes of the UK! Get your tickets starting tomorrow).

I'm making an ESB, recipe as follows.

Lobelia Extra Special Bitter
7 lbs Britsh 2-row pale
2 lbs dextrin/carapils
1.5 lbs caramunich
0.5 lbs red wheat malt
0.1 lbs chocolate malt
0.1 lbs brit 2-row toasted in my coffee roaster for about 5 minutes

1.5 oz Williammette 4.5%AA @ 60 minutes

0.75 oz Williammette 4.5%AA @ 20 minutes

0.75 oz Williammette 4.5%AA @ 5 minutes

I was shooting for a mast temp of 152F but under shot that a bit. Added some boiling water and just barely got it up to 150F (and now the mash is reallllly thin.) I'll let you know how this turns out. I"m looking forward to it.