We’ve been dabbling in homebrewing for the past year and have had some successful batches, and fortunately, no disasters. No bottle bombs, boil overs, and nothing soap and bleach could not clean up. After starting with extract brewing, we moved to partial mash, and then all grain brewing. The main issues we’ve had are: inconsistent fermenting temperatures, calculation errors for boil off rates, healthy grains, and etc.

Tools we use are: Igloo mash tun with false-bottom, Polarware stainless steel pot with valve, and fermenting bucket.

The first all grain success is the pale ale recipe from Bitters and Esters in Brooklyn, NY. This recipe is made of 2 row, caramel, and carapils malts. The hops we used were cascade and we fermented the wort in a liquid Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast. This recipe took four hours to brew, resulting in a OG of 1.51 and two weeks to ferment, resulting in a FG of 1.01 (5.3% ABV).

We bottle condition all beers.

Appearance – Pours a light cloudy amber with thin white head

Aroma – Scent of citrus and malt

Taste – Hoppy bitterness, with subtle citrus, slight perfume-like (likely due to a high fermenting temperature)

Overall – We are thrilled with the bitter, full-bodied pale ale flavor