28 Days Later October Ale
Ingredients
- 6 Gallons Water (3 gallons for cooking, then more to finish)
- 8 Lb Medium malt extract
- 1 quart Munich Malt
- 1 pint Carapils Malt
- 1 Pint Chocolate Malt
- 3 each cinnamon sticks
- 2 Oz Hallertau Hops
- 1 oz Cascades hops
- 1/2 oz Chinook Hops
- 1/2 oz Hallertau hops (finishing)
- 1 each defloculation tablet (or 1 oz Irish moss)
- 11.5 grams Lager yeast
- 3/4 cup corn sugar or other type of priming sugar
Instructions
- Sanitize all your equipment and containers at all steps of the process.
- Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil.
- Place the Malts in a cheesecloth sack and put in the water. Add in the cinnamon sticks. Taper it back to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 45 minutes. Then remove the bag, making sure to strain the liquid back into the pot.
- Whisk in the Malt extract and bring back to a simmer.
- Add in the Hallertau hops. Simmer for 45 minutes.
- Add the cascades hops and Irish moss or flocculation tablet. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Add in the remaining hops. Continue simmer for 5 more minutes.
- Strain the brew into a 5 gallon bucket using a sparging bag to remove as much sediment as possible. Take out the bag and add cold water to the wort. Transfer to a "carboy or fermenting tub. Allow to cool to room temperature. Then pitch the yeast.
- Put a stopper with a blow off tube in the carboy. Put the fermenter in a dark cool place like a closet. Allow the brew to ferment for 2 to 3 days with the tube so that the krausen (foamy discharge) can escape, and drain off into a container with water in it. Check the discharge a couple times a day.
- When the discharge level tapers off, replace the tube with an air lock. Allow to ferment an additional 11 days for a total of 14 days.
- After the initial fermentation, transfer the beer to a "raking" or bottling bucket. Strain it out during the transfer to remove excess sediment. Use a syphon for this process. You don't want to mix in the sediment in the bottom. Heat the priming sugar in about a cup of water. Whisk into the beer. Transfer the beer to bottles and/or kegs. Cap them and then allow the secondary fermentation to take place. Place the bottles or kegs in a dark cool place where they won't be disturbed for 2 weeks.
- The bottled beer should sit for 2 more weeks. Then, you can rfrigerate and enjoy.
Notes
At each step along the way, make sure you sanitize all your equipment. Not just cleaning. They need to be sanitized with a beer safe/food safe sanitizing solution and/or heat sanitizing. This can be done in a dishwasher if it has a sanitize setting. The temperature required needs to be over 190 degrees. If that type of temperature is not achievable, use a chemical sanitizer such as star San, Beer Clean, or one step. You need to sanitize every piece of equipment. I usually boil the bottle caps to sanitize them.