Is in the keg. Took the final gravity reading at 1.015, a bit higher than what I expected, especially given the large, highly-active starter that I pitched. But, it has a nice color and taste, even though flat. Now I just wait for carbonation.
Related Post
Great Lakes Xmas Ale CloneGreat Lakes Xmas Ale Clone
I got my recipe from Brewer’s Friend, and it was a recipe posted by Cameron. He also has a YouTube video showing how he went about it.
Well it was that time of year again for the Christmas Ale to come rolling out, and I had my fill of it over the holidays. I’ve never tried brewing a clone of the beer, so this year I thought that I would. I got to it a bit later than I would have liked, but the five gallons I got will carry me through the snowy months as I brew Stout and then, in March, and Oktoberfest.
| Amt | Name | Type | # | %/IBU | Volume |
| 12 lbs | Pale Malt | Grain | 1 | 78.0 % | 0.94 gal |
| 1 lbs 3.2 oz | Caramel/Crystal Malt – 40L (53.4 SRM) | Grain | 2 | 7.8 % | 0.09 gal |
| 12.8 oz | Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) | Grain | 3 | 5.2 % | 0.06 gal |
| 5.1 oz | Special Roast (50.0 SRM) | Grain | 4 | 2.1 % | 0.03 gal |
| 1.0 oz | Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) | Grain | 5 | 0.4% | 0.00 gal |
| 1.0 oz | Liberty [4.30 %] – Boil 60.0 min | Hop | 6 | 11.6 IBUs | — |
| 1.0 oz | Liberty [4.30 %] – Boil 15.0 min | Hop | 7 | 5.7 IBUs | — |
| 1.0 oz | Ginger Root (Boil 12.0 mins) | Herb | 8 | — | — |
| 1.0 oz | Cascade [5.50 %] – Boil 11.0 min | Hop | 9 | 5. IBUs | — |
| 4.0 oz | Cinnamon Stick (Boil 5.0 mins) | Spice | 10 | — | — |
| 1 lb | Honey [Primary] | Honey | 11 | 6.5% | 0.08 gal |
I had to make some modifications based on the ingredients I had on hand, but this is the recipe I ended up with:
My mash volume was 6.52 gallons with a pH of 5.3 and my sparge volume was 3.73 gallons with a pH of 5.2. My pre-boil volume was 8 gallons (I overshot the 7.4 recommended), but boiled it 75 minutes instead of 60 minutes. I mashed at between 154 degrees and 156 degrees for 60 minutes, the sparge took around the same amount of time at 168 degrees. (I donated my spent grains to a neighbor who has chickens.) My measured pre-boil gravity was 1.056, and my measured original gravity was 1.070. I brew using a Grainfather, so the mash was continually re-circulating. I pitched a California Ale yeast (WLP001), for which I created a starter. The yeast was old (September 2021 expiration), so I hedged my bet and also pitched Safale US-05 into the fermenter. The wort went into the fermenter at 68 degrees, I oxygenated it via O2 and a stone prior to pitching the yeast. The beer finished fermenting three days ago, January 3, 2022, and started fermenting within 24 hours. It was a long fermentation as I brewed the beer on December 23, 2021. I’ll move it into a corny keg tomorrow and take final gravity readings at that time.
Brew Day!Brew Day!
Took my floating holiday from work today and am brewing an Arrogant Bastard clone; the wonder work of Stone Brewing Co. (I’ll add some holiday spices in the secondary to give it a proper Christmas kick.)
Using the following recipe, which I picked up at Homebrew Talk:
- 11.5 pounds pale two-row malt
- 1.0 pounds crystal 120
- 0.5 lb Special-B
- 0.75 lb Biscuit
- 0.5 lb Aromatic
- 0.5 lb CaraMunich
- 1.25 oz chinook pellets (12.5 aa%) (15.6 AAUs) @ 90 min
- 1.0 oz chinook pellets (12.5 AAUs) @ 30 min
- 0.5 oz chinook pellets (6.25 AAUs) @ flame out
- 1 tsp Irish moss
- White Labs WLP007 or WLP001 (English Ale Yeast)
Preparation:
Mash at 155 degrees for 60 minutes. Boil for 90 minutes, adding the hops according to schedule. Add Irish Moss last 5 minutes of the boil. Cool wort and pitch yeast. Primary ferment at about 68 F for 7 to 10 days. Secondary fermentation optional.
Specifics:
Style Strong Ale
Recipe Type All Grain
Batch Size 5 gallons
Original Gravity 1.074
Final Gravity 1.018
Boiling Time 90 minutes
Primary Fermentation Glass, ~ 68 F, 7-10 days
Secondary Fermentation optional
Other Specifics 75 IBUs, about 7% abv.
Outdoor BrewOutdoor Brew
Spent part of Monday brewing outdoors. The first time I’ve done that. I purchased a Blichmann floor burner from Grape and Granary a few years back and just hadn’t gotten around to using it; well, now I can say that I have.
The burner is fantastic and connects to a propane tank. It puts out 72,000 BTU’s per hour which translates to a whole lot of heat for fast boils. I am used to brewing in my kitchen where I use a standard gas range. The time to boil was a great delay in the brew day for me. After lautering and sparging and collecting the wort into the boil kettle, the time from that 160 or so degrees to 212 was too much. It could take nearly an hour just to get to boil. I didn’t time things out specifically, but I would swear that the Blichmann was heating water at around 10 degrees every five minutes, maybe even faster. So in approximately twenty to twenty-five minute it was boiling. It happened so fast, in fact, that I had my first boil over in years, even with fermcap. But it was outdoors, so only the ants were pissed (and me later, when I had to scrub the pot).
Another upshot with outdoor brewing is that I just ran the hose to the kettle and used the hose to connect to the Blichmann plate chiller that I have. The excess water that comes in chilling the wort went straight into the garden beds for the very thirsty pumpkins, cucumbers, and peppers. The main drawback was that the water temperature was very difficult to get down, with the nearly 100 degree heat, so I could only chill the wort to 77 degrees, which is a bit high for pitching (but I did it anyway).
I brewed a Brown Ale with lots of Cascade and Nugget hops. The Nugget came straight from my backyard, circa 2011 (vacuum sealed in the freezer). It was a low gravity extract beer which I am using as a yeast starter (essentially) for an all-grain Imperial Red (Nosferatu clone) that I’ll brew in a week or two.