Short Bus Bitter - Version 1.0

Moving to all grain brewing is a pretty big step for most homebrewers. I know guys who have been brewing for years and have never made the leap. The cost involved, additional equipment required, different process and the variables are just too much for some people to want to make the leap. 

I mean you can make awesome beers with extract and steeping grains right? I have done this very thing after all. For me though, there's something more visceral and connected with the beer I'm making when I get to see it start as a bag of grain and end up all frothy in my glass (and in my belly). I get to choose the fermentability of the wort and not be limited by whatever the maltster making the extract chooses to do. It's my choices that make the end product. It's what brewers have been doing since the dawn of time and I want to be a part of that storied history. Also I get the added benefit of getting to be lazy or nit picky as I see fit. "As I see fit" gets a lot of mileage for me. 

I remember being a bit worried when coming up with my first AG brew (..ok a lot worried). I spent a lot of time playing with the numbers on the Brew Builder at Brewmasters Warehouse and with BeerSmith. I learned all I could online at homebrewtalk.com stalking the forums and buying and reading books from Amazon.

All this was well and necessary but the day when you name your beer, I believe, is the day that it truly becomes a real thing. not just a formulation in some software or an idea you're kicking around. 

For me that day was on August 20th, 2011. I named (with help from lovely Sara) my first all grain beer and placed the order for the grains, hops and yeast. 

The Short Bus Bitter was so named because if I felt like it was too badly screwed up I could claim to have been hit by said bus. This was brewed on August 27th with the below recipe. I still have a few bottles left of this one and will post a pic and some tasting notes when I get a chance.

OG 1.059

FG 1.012 

78% measured attenuation

Grains

10 lbs Maris Otter

12 oz Carmel 60L

2 oz Black Patent

Hops 

1 oz Goldings, East Kent first wort hops

1 oz Goldings, East Kent 60 min boil

.50 oz Fuggles 30 min 

.50 oz Fuggles at flameout

Notes from the brewday are below. 

8-27-2011

8:15 am mash in with 14 qts 168 degree water. hit 152 on the nose with preheated mash tun.

9:15 am 1st vorlauf and first runnings

9:30 first runnings 2.25 gallons and FWH 1 oz EKG on to boil. (boilover lol)

Batch sparge with 20 qt (5gal)  of 170 degree water for 15 min then vorlauf and second runnings. mash temp 166

9:45 add second runnings and top kettle at 6.5 gallons .... edit 7.5 gal of wort. use 4.5 gal of sparge water next time.

10:15 doing an intial 30 min boil of at 7 gallons (set aside .5 gallon)  . pre boil gravity at 1.046 after temp correction

10:45 add 1oz ekg boil for 60 min... added back .25 gallons

11:15 add 1/2 oz Fuggles

11:30 add Irish moss and chiller

11:45 add 1/2 oz Fuggles at flame out

time the chiller--- be sure to let it chill to ambient. 20 min or so in 80 degree heat

clean up done by 12:30pm

pitch one packet of Safale S-04 at 3:45pm after cooling in freezer. 5.25 gal of wort

...

There ain't nothing like learning. Especially about boil-overs (read as "making a hideous mess"), and to let Beersmith calculate your strike and sparge volumes. The next weekend I did two all-grain beers on consecutive days and learned some lessons. Stay tuned.