Batch 1: Autumn Amber Ale: Brewing Day

Here is the extract kit that came with my brewing kit.

I boiled three gallons of water to add to the wort at the end of the boil. As it turns out, it wasn't enough.

I steeped the specialty grains in a muslin bag for 30 minutes at 155º and then an additional 10 minutes off the burner.

After adding the liquid malt extract, I brought the wort to a rolling boil for 20 minutes to reach the hot break. I ran into trouble using my stainless steel kettle on a flat surface stove burner. It vibrated violently after just a few seconds. I had planned to use a propane burner outside, but rains forced me into the kitchen. Keeping a light touch on the handle of the burner solved the problem but was quite annoying after about three hours of brewing. I boiled the bittering hops for 60 minutes, adding the aroma hops for the final 10 minutes of the boil.

I chilled the wort by first topping it off with a couple gallons of the water I boiled before starting and then immersing the kettle in a bath of water, ice, and salt. Then, I stirred in the dry yeast packet, and siphoned the wort and pre-boiled water into the carboy which only got the liquid level up to base of the curve on the carboy. I scrambled to boil and chill more water. I did my best to shake the carboy to aerate the pitched wort, but I'm going to need to figure out a better way to do this for future batches. Finally, I fixed the blow-off tube to the carboy and sunk the end in sanitizing solution.

Ingredients:

• 6 lb. Gold LME
• 2 oz. Special B
• 8 oz. Caramel 80L
• 2 oz. roasted malt
• 1 oz. Hallertau hop pellets (bittering)
• 1 oz. Fuggle hop pellets (aroma)
• 6 g Muntons dry yeast