Brewday, clone of Lagunitas Censored Ale, anglicized

Leaving work early, but I'll have my requisite 44 hours in so I'm not slacking! Going to the beach for a nice walk in the late afternoon sun, then it's home for an all-grain brew session.

The recipe is derived from this podcast, Can You Brew It: Lagunitas Censored on the Brewing Network, The Jamil Show, Can You Brew It?. I've made this once before and I didn't think it was anywhere near 'cloned'. Probably the process (mine vs. their's) was wrong. It was still mighty tasty and I drank it all, mind you, but just not cloned.

To try something a bit different, which actually meant "I don't know what change(s) to make to my process to make the original recipe taste closer to Lagunitas Censored Ale", I decided to change all of the American malts (Briess) to English ones (Crisp). 

• Maris Otter instead of 2 row pale ale, 
• Crysal 60 instead of Caramel 60, and 
• Crisp roasted barley instead of the Briess roasted barley. 

I call this an anglicized version of the CYBI recipe. Quite right, eh? Brilliant!! Oh, wait, that's an Irish exclamation, not British. It fits, no matter what the country of origin. But, already, I digress.
I'll get back with you, probably later tonight (didn't happen), to fill in the recipe specifics and how the brew session went, a la The Mad Fermentationist blog on his brew sessions. 



Anglicized Lagunitas Censored Ale clone

Recipe Specifics 
 ----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 6.00
 
I need to run this through Pro-mash, don't I?

Total Grain (Lbs): 15.75
Anticipated OG: x.xxx
Anticipated SRM: xx.x
Anticipated IBU: xx.x
Brewhouse Efficiency: xx %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
------
Crisp Maris Otter  11.8125 lbs (5.36 kg)  -- 75.0%
Weyermann Munich Type II 1.5625 lb (0.71 kg)  9.9%
Weyermann Pale Wheat 1.25 (0.57 kg) 7.9%
Crisp Crystal Malt 60L 1.0625 lb 0.48 kg) 6.7%
Crisp Roasted Barley 0.0625 lb (0.03 kg) 0.4%


Hops
------
Willamette (Pellet, 4.60% AA) @ 60 min.
Cascade (Pellet, 4.60% AA) @ 15 min.
Horizon
Centennial
Liberty


Yeast
------
White Labs English Ale, WLP002

Water Profile
--------------
Profile: Titusville FL, filtered through activated carbon to remove chlorine

Mash Schedule
-------------
Sacch Rest - 60 min @  F
Mash Out - 10 min @ 168 F

Notes
------
7/16/11 Brewed with Audrey

Collected 6.75 gallons of 1.038 runnings with a batch sparge.

Left out the whirlfloc and yeast nutrient.

Chilled to 65 F and pitched with 1 rehydrated (85 F for 15 min) pack of US-05. Shook for 5 minutes to aerate. Left at 65 ambient to ferment.

Good fermentation after 18 hours.

7/24/11 Fermentation appears to be mostly complete.

8/7/11 Bottled, down to 1.012. Added 3.5 oz of cane sugar to the 4.38 gallons of beer we yielded. Aiming for 2.5 volumes of CO2.

9/23/11 Solid beer, but not great.  The Willamette lent a spicy hop character that I'm not enamored with, not to say it is a bad beer, just one that I don't love.

Catching up documentation of my brewing activity

With the new contract working hours and not wanting to spend the majority of a whole weekend day brewing, I've arranged my work hours so I'm done with the week by 3 pm on Friday. 30 minute drive home and I'm brewing by 3:30. Seven or so hours later the wort is in the fermenter and chills overnight in the temperature controlled fermentation 'incubator' when it is pitched. Then, I've got the whole weekend, less Friday night, to frolic, etc.

April 22, 2011. My first North German Altbier from Brewing Classic Styles by JZ & JP.

May 21, 2011. pLambic 2011 #2 pitched with ECY02 yeast blend

June 24, 2011. My first pKolsch from Brewing Classic Styles

July 10, 2011. Belgian Strong Dark Ale, BSDA to feed the solera in about a month (Aug 06)

This Friday, July 15. Another 'The Innkeeper', but the yeast from Northern Brewer is WAY old.

My Google calendar for homebrewing

Homebrewing like a maniac

The original draft for this was dated in March, 2011. I never completed it or published it, so I don't know what the publish date will be now that I've completed it.

Over the next four out of five weekends, probably on Sundays, I'll be brewing up 4 different beers.

1. Belgian strong dark ale (BSDA) #3 of 3 for my solera project (3 criadera started 4 months apart).
2. A Munich Helles, my first ever lager
3. A repeat brew of Denny's Wry Smile Rye IPA
4. The first pLambic of 2011 using Bugfarm #5 from East Coast Yeast (ECY01)

Lots of brewing going on

Right now I'm fermenting a California common (Uncommonly Lucky recipe from BCS) and an Orval clone (Oval AG kit from Northern Brewer). The California common will be racked to a keg tonight for carbonation and conditioning if the final gravity is ok. It was brewed 12 days ago on Sunday, 06-Feb-11. The Cali common was started this past Sunday, 13-Feb-11. I'm currently drinking two sessions beers and a sour ale, thus the dispensing temperature controlled chest freezer (50 oF) is filled to the max.

The one session beer is Cumbrian Double Brown Ale, a Northern Brown Ale all grain recipe from Northern Brewer. A previous extract version of this I consider to be the best beer I've made since restarting the hobby in February of 2009. Northern Brewer was out of one of the grains, Halcyon, so I got it from Rebel Brewer. The yeast is a Wyeast Premier one called British Cask. I forget the Wyeast strain number for it but will look it up, maybe tonight, and update this post. This all grain version is still tasty and also one of the best I've made.

The other session beer is from a kit from Northern Brewer called 'The Inkeeper', a British Best Bitter. However, I forgot these kits were for 5 gallons instead of the 6 gallons that I've been brewing for a while now, so the O.G. was only 1.042. This O.G. is at the bottom level for a Best Bitter, so maybe this one will be more of an Ordinary Bitter. I don't care if it has 5/6 less alcohol, it's still very tasty. When I make it again I'll get enough ingredients for 6 gallons. The yeast is another Limited Edition Wyeast one, Yorkshire Ale I think, # 1495. But I'll have to look this up tonight too and update the blog post accordingly.

The sour beer is my second attempt at a sour beer back in May of 2009. By the time I got it kegged it had been conditioning in a Better Bottle for nearly 18 months. It is a Flanders Red pitched with Wyeast Roeselare sour blend (#I dunno). It's pretty good and not nearly as sour now as it was at 1 year. Pretty complex flavors and these got me a compliment from Dave Webb at last month's SAAZ homebrewer's club meeting. I'll take along another bottle of it this Sunday for the February SAAZ meeting.

Also age conditioning:

• Golden Dragon, a Belgian Strong Dark Ale all grain from Northern Brewer. It was 1 year aged on 02-Feb-11 and I'll be drinking it next when one of the session beers runs out. This could be 3 to 4 weeks from now. It isn't as good as I had hoped, so I've decided not to bottle any for further aging. I'll use my BDSA solera project output for this, starting in early August, 2011.
• Notre Dame d'Golden Valley. An Orval clone, recipe kit from Northern Brewer. The Oval kit mention above has the exact same ingredient list as this one, but with different yeast. I guess NB figured that made it enough different to give it a different name. It has been age conditioning since 03-Mar-10, almost a year.
• Two Lambics
• A 2010 version of the Flanders Red.
• A 2011 version of the Oud Bruin, secondary pitched with East Coast Yeast's Bugfarm IV (Al B. is now commercial, selling his great sour mixes through Princeton Homebrew in New Jersey. I used Al B's Bugfarm III, acquired at the end of December, 2009 from him via a distribution he arranged on a forum thread at the Burgundian Babble Belt fora). Age conditioning started a few weeks ago. You can find out about East Coast Yeast on Facebook. See their Info tab for how to order their yeast inoculum products. Most are (proprietary) blends.
  
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