Home Brewing Recipes Baker Street Ales Associate Brewer Arny Lands
Beer Nexus the crossroads of the beer world
First before I give the recipe I would like to recommend the U-Brew that is part of Gaslight Brewery in South Orange NJ as a great place to get supplies. If you go to the Gaslight Brewery website (www.Gaslightbrewey.com) you can access the U-Brew catalogue on line. Decide what you need and call in your order before going. They will have your order ready for you and you can sample their excellent brews while you visit. Sounds like a great plan to me.
Also if you want to try making a brown ale that has a barrel aged whiskey flavor try this trick. Wine suppliers carry toasted wood chips that are added to glass wine fermenters to add flavor. Get two small bags of lightly to moderately toasted chips and a bottle of your favorite whiskey ( in my case Tullamore Dew ).
Place the chips in a quart sized plastic container and fill it up with whiskey to cover the chips. Allow these to soak for 4-7 weeks before you brew. When the primary fermentation slows, drain the chips and add them (still wet) to the fermenter. You will find that after aging the bottles for two months the flavors will mellow out to a tasty treat.
As always, read my article on Belgian Triple for advice on sanitizing your equipment and bottling. Procedure on that will become routine, and I don't want to keep repeating myself every article.
To make a nice Brown Ale follow this easy recipe. I like a lot of hops in mine so adjust the recipe to suit your palate.
1) Activate your yeast ( English or London Ale liquid yeast) according to directions.
2) Fill your carboy with 3 gallons water.
3) Put 8 oz. crushed Crystal Malt into a grain bag and add to 2 1/2 gallons water in your brewpot. Bring the water up to 170 degrees and turn off the heat. Put a lid on it and let it sit 30 minutes stirring occasionally.
4) Remove the grain bag and allow it to drain into the brewpot but don't squeeze it out.
5) Bring the brewpot to a boil and stir in a 3.3 lb can of Plain Amber Malt Extract.
6) Now stir in 3 lbs Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract and resume the boil.
7) Ah.. now my favorite part.. Add 2 oz. Cascade, Willamette or your hop of choice. Pay attention now to avoid boil-over. If it looks like it will over boil, pull it off the stove, stir it up and it will be ok to put back on the heat. Boil the hops for 45 min- 1 hour.
8) Now to add bittering hops. Add 1 oz Cascade, Willamette or your hop of choice and boil for 15-20 minutes more. Avoid over boiling.
9) Cool your wort and add it to the fermenter.
10) Pitch your yeast as per instructions, and then attach a blow-off tube.
11) If you whiskey soaked your chips, you will want to add them when you replace the blow-off tube wit an airlock.
Remember you are the brewer. Use this as a guide to get you started and use whatever specialty grains and hops you wish.
CHEERS!
PS- I would like to thank Arty Hannemann for taking me on the Rails to The Ales to Pearl River NY. It was a lot of fun,so be sure to read his article.