Teach a Friend to Home Brew Day - APA

TFTHBD was a good success, brewing wise at least. Only had one of my friends from work show up and my neighbor (who brews as well) came by for the afternoon. The day started pretty early (around 10:30 am) and we cracked open our first Pale Ale from Opa Opa. It was great beer, and get our creative juices flowing.

We chose an American Pale ale as our brew and decided to drink those types all day. The mash went well, although we were a little on the warm side (158) which I'm not too happy about, but thats what happens when you put the lid on, then go drink and don't check it for an hour! I tried to add our first hop addition as First Wort Hops (FWH) to prevent a boilover, but that really didn't work and I once again had a pretty big boilover. Hopefully it won't effect the IBU's too much. We hit our target gravity right on the money, 1.055. That made me happy because my first all-grain batch was a tad bit off the mark.

I used Magnum for the first time and I was very please. Very high alpha (ours were 13.5) and awesome aroma. The recipe is below.

Stats:
Brewed - 11/1/08
H20/Grain ratio - 1.3
Mash Temp/Time - 158/60min
Pre-Boil Volume - 8.5 g
Post-Boil Volume - 6
OG - 1.055
IBU - 41
SRM - 7

Fermentables:
11 lbs Two Row
.5 lbs Crystal 40l
.5 lbs Crystal 20l
.75 lbs Munich Light
.25 lbs Victory

Hops:
.5 oz Magnum (13.5% AA - FWH)
1 oz Chinook (12% AA - 15 min)
.5 oz Cascade (6.6% AA - 10 min)
.5 oz Cascade (6.6% AA - DH)

Yeast:
Wyeast - 1056 American Ale

It is bubbling away pretty good right now, so I'm excited for this to be done. Tonight, I bottle my Brown ale. I took a reading last night and had a great fermentation, slightly more than I had planned though.

Cheers,
Jason