Brewed 14 Jan 2017 | Kegged 21 Jan 2017 | Yield 18 L / 6.1% (14.7°P → 3.3°P)

This was a relatively large tweak to …and time is still marching on: starting with the same grain bill, adding some dark malt extract I had lying around from Long Night and a dash of honey to up the gravity, swapping out the yeast and the hops to make it a bit less Alt and to nudge it in the direction of Long Night.

The name continues the They Might Be Giants time-related song title theme.

Grain Bill

• 3900g Pale Ale malt (7 EBC)
• 350g Light Wheat malt (4 EBC)
• 270g Caramünch 2 (120 EBC)
• 100g Carapils (5 EBC)
• 80g Acid Malt (5 EBC)

Adjuncts

• 500g Brewferm Dark DME (57 EBC)
• 300g Acacia Honey

Mash

I mashed in 20L water at 46°C, and ran a four-rest mash program:

• 10 min @ 53°C
• 40 min @ 63°C
• 30 min @ 67°C
• 5 min @ 78°C

I then sparged with 8L water at 78°C. As with the last brew, mashing out was relatively quick at 25 minutes. I suspect this has something to do with the grain mill at SIOS – this grain bill was ground at the same time as Sheepgoat’s.

Boil

I boiled the wort for five minutes before adding the first hops, then added Chinook, Cascade, and Mandarina Bavaria as follows:

• Bittering: 60 min 15g 11.9% Chinook
• Bittering: 60 min 20g 13.3% Pacific Jade
• Flavor: 30 min 20g 6.7% Cascade
• Flavor: 30 min 10g 11.9% Chinook
• Aroma: 2 min 30g 6.7% Cascade
• Aroma: 2 min 30g 7.3% Mandarina Bavaria

Pitching and Fermentation

Cooling to 23.5°C with an immersion cooler took XX minutes. Initial gravity was 14.7°P. I pitched a smack pack of Wyeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite; extremely enthusiastic fermentation started after about 6 hours, and lasted three days. Slow fermentation continued a further three days. Final gravity was 3.2°P, for 6.2% ABV.

Kegging

I added 95g of light DME to 300mL of water, boiled and cooled, put it in an 18L Cornelius keg, then added 17.7L of beer from the fermenter to the keg. I pressurized to 250 hPa to make sure the seals held. I held the keg at 22°C for secondary fermentation for three weeks before moving it into the cellar. I let it age there for about six months before sticking it in the fridge and tapping it.

How is it, then?

Perfectly drinkable and nicely boozy, but a little boring. There’s not much character from the honey, just alcohol, and I suspect that the dark DME is dominating the flavor a bit; there’s a little extract twang, too. This is probably my last experiment with adding DME to a Braumeister extraction.