F1-01-05-22: Gregan, Larkham & Latham Austrailian pale ale

Label Inspiration: It's from Australia, right? Well, I know a few good things from Down Under: three of the best rugby players ever: George Gregan, Stephen Larkham and Chris Latham. I loved watching them play. This beer is dedicated to them.

Based on the Tasmanian Devil Australian Pale Ale recipe from Northern Brewer
Five gallon, extract w/specialty grains

Specialty Grain:

0.5 lbs Light Carastan

Extracts and Other Fermentables:

3.15 Maris Otter malt syrup (60 min edition)

6 lbs Pilsen malt syrup (5 min late addition)

Hops:

1 oz. Pride of Ringwood (60 min)

1 oz. Australian Galaxy (5 min)

1 oz Australian Galaxy (dry hop)

Yeast: White Labs WLP009 liquid yeast. Optimal temps…65-70 degrees

May 20, 2015. Created yeast starter with 2000ml flask, Stir Starter, 1 cup of DME, and the White Labs WLP009. The yeast was very chunky in the vial and I’m not sure it’ll take. I shook it vigorously and dumped what I could into the flask. We’ll see.  I’m leaving the flask on the Sir Starter for a day…I’ll check on it tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll brew.

One thing was strange…I’ve never used a liquid yeast before and it was weird to see a tan film on the vial, which I assume was leftover yeast. I couldn’t get it out so I left it. Also, there were several chunks that fel into the flask from the vial. I thought t would be mostly liquid.

May 21, 2015. Yeast starter looks creamy brown, which from what I understand means that the yeast is active in the lil wort. I’m going to pitch it all when it’s time.

I followed the instructions that came with the kit. OG was 1.062 but that was at 71 degrees.

I used StarSan this time to sanitize everything. I had to get used to the foam, though. I found it hard to believe that the foam wouldn’t hurt my beer.

May 22, 2015. I looked at the airlock in the morning and nothing was happening.  Temps were still at 68-70. I thought that my yeast was bad. Whebn I came home in the afternoon, the airlock was going crazy! Temps were still at 68-70 in my swamp cooler.

NOTE: I felt that a swamp cooler was the best for me. After doing plenty of research on the internet and realizing that I didn't have enough cash for another fridge and a temp controller, I used a swamp cooler. This can be a big tub where you put the fermenter in and you add some water to it. You can also drapea T-shirt or towel on top of the fermenter so it can wisk the heat away from the fermentor (to cool temps). This can help maintain fairly consistent temps. Also, you add frozen water bottles to adjust the temps within the swamp cooler.

Racked to secondary June 4, 2015, two weeks after brew day. I was apprehensive about keeping it in the primary for so long (especially since the yeast did such a great job in the beginning), but I wanted to allow for the yeast to get all it could. I realize that some of the off-flavors I may have experienced with the Mr. Beer kits might be due to the long periods of fermentation and dead yeast laying around, I still think 2 weeks is enough in this case.

Racking went fairly smoothly. There was a half-inch cake of hops and yeast at the bottom of the primary and hard yeast caked at the top of the primary…nasty. The beer itself smelled kinda sweet and reminded me of my old Mr. Beer recipes. Oops. I hope not. An Austrailian pale ale is a little malty so who knows. It didn’t smell bad, though. Im just nervous.

After a few minutes, the airlock was working. We’ll see! I tried to lay the tube down in the carboy to minimize the bubles, but we’ll see.

June 22, 2015 Bottled beer today. FG was 1.036. What? I thought it would’ve finished out at thispoint since the SG was low. I bottled too soon and I’m very upset. Sometimes I hate brewing.

The final (unprimed) product tasted very sweet and peachy. Come to find out, one of the reviewers on the NB site said it was really peachy s that’s a good sign. Maybe I can salvage this after all by just keeping them bottled for a longer peiord of time. Some articles and posts have stated that bottle conditioning is just another type of secondary fermentation. Maybe that’s true.

June 26, 2015. Tried one today. Beer was very sweet, a little bitter finish and cloudy as hell. Maybe a stuck fermentation. I shouldn’t have needed 3-4 weeks in secondary, but maybe so. Crap! I can taste and smell some serious peach flavor though…

July 1, 2015. The beer doesn’t seem to be getting any better. It’s drinkable, but it’s still sweet and bitter- like the two are duking it out but not coming together. The pronounced peach flavor is gone.

July 5, 2015. Tried another beer. It’s been sitting in the fridge for a few ays. Still EXTREMELY cloudy. Even though some of bitter and sweet flavors are duking it out, the peach flavor is subtle but back once again.  I’m wondering if I bottled too soon still, but as this ages I guess I’ll find out.

July 12, 2015. Cold conditioned the rest of the beer.

July 23, 2015. Tried a few tonight from the fridge. Tasted very bitter. Smelled like homebrew. Not horrible and definitely drinkable- just not smooth yet and not really any peach flavor.  I think it just needs more time.

August 2, 2015. Tastes ok, but it tastes like a homebrew. It’s cleared up, has nice head retention, bitterness is fine. I can taste he peach but also the homebrew tatse. Maybe a tad dry as well.

 Overall score: 5 out of 10