Back brewing, finally. Last brew was in January and ran out over two months ago. After over 18 weeks, it was time to brew again. That’s exactly what I did a couple weeks ago on a quite Thursday night.
I could rattle off the big list of reasons why I haven’t brewed for so long. But let me simply say: we started looking for our first home, bought a place, moved and settled in. Like all change it takes a bit to get use to.
Hops ready for measuring before going into the Lazy House Ale
Knowing that I have no home brew, and wanting to put something on for the housewarming, a brew needed to happen sooner than later. All the same there wasn’t a lot of free time. So I came up with a simple and quick extract brew for 12 litres. The idea was to make a low hopped beer that was easy to drink. I didn’t have a huge amount of time and also tried to finish off a few ingredients that had been around a while. Lazy House Ale #1:
- 300 grams Briess Sparkling Amber dry malt extract, boiled for 30 minutes
- 13 grams Citra hops, for 30 mins
- 4 grams Motueka (Belgian Saaz) hops, at flame out
- 1.5 kilograms Briess Pilsen Light liquid malt extract, directly into fermenter
Hot break of the Lazy House Ale
I was meant to dumped the liquid malt into the fermenter and the hot wort at the same time. But, by default, I started chilling the wort straight after the boil. As a result when I put the liquid malt in later it didn’t dissolve as intended. That meant I didn’t get a realistic gravity reading. Original Gravity only came in at 1.022 but was calculated as 1.048. I’ll be using calculated OG for the purpose of calculating final alcohol, even though I rarely hit calculated OG.
Add this was a bit of a finish-off-what-I-have-brew things were changing right up to brewing. The amount of Citra hops was more than I would have liked. I thought I might get away with it… until I tasted the sample. A fair bit hoppier than I was aiming for. We’ll wait and see how it balances out.
Lazy House Ale done and in fermenter
It’s been over two weeks since brew day. Going to bottle tomorrow. Then onto more brewing. A dark beer is needed so it can be aged and appreciated during winter. A two litre apple cider is required. The next “not-beer” really needs to be done. I’m going to be busy.
-Mikey
We make home brew 