Keyster Ale (aka- Magic Cat #20-10)

WHAT-AH-DAY!!

Defying Rachael's expectations of my ability to get off the couch on Sunday, we managed to get another successful brew day in yesterday, despite my consumption of 31 beers the day before. (This being a great forum to declare that they were Bud Lights-- however, if they were anything more than forgiving fratboy swill, I probably would not be here to type this).

We had planned a Magic Hat #9 clone for the next beer, and in light of Kumari's 30, er, 20-10th birthday coming up in a month, as well as an amazing story involving a rectum cache and apricot jam, the #9 clone, itself already infused with an apricot essence, became Keyster Ale (aka- Magic Cat #20-10)! A special thanks to Ari for retelling the exotic escapade of European butt-travel! (Note: Ari was not the courier)

First, some updates: We racked the Carrie Nation IPA to secondary through the spigot of the ale bucket, which worked very well, I'm sure as well as using the auto-siphon. After the transfer, we shoved 2 oz. of Centennial whole-leaf hops into the carboy to dry hop in secondary. I couldn't help but think the beer had a slightly off smell (sour?), but I may just be paranoid. The mead continues to bubble in the 6.5 gallon carboy; we took a sample and measured the gravity at 1.080- about .015 under the initial gravity. Good progress, and it's still fermenting, but we purchased some yeast nutrient to add when things slow down. Next time, we'll make a starter for sure.

But back to the Keyster:

Keyster Ale (aka- Magic Cat #20-10)

8 lbs. Rahr 2-Row

1 lb. flaked wheat

10 oz. Crystal Malt (60 L)

9 oz. Simpsons CaraMalt

8 oz. Munich Malt

"I'll give you to the count of 10 to get your ugly, yellow-livered keister off my property, before I pump your keister full of apricot jam! Which this tommy gun is full of!"

Warmed 13 qts. of water to 155 degrees. Mixed with the grist to get a temperature of about 133-5 degrees. Held it there for about 25-30 minutes.

Next, added 6 qts. of water near boiling. This brought the temp to about 150 degrees, though it varied throughout the mash tun, as it often does. We held it at this temp for 60 minutes.

Then, we added ~6 qts. of water at 190 degrees to finish conversion, only it only seemed to bring the temp up to 152 degrees, so we added some more of the 190 degree water. After another 15 minutes, we did the first runnings, then added 2 gallons (8 qts) of water to sparge. We held it in there for about 15 minutes, and then sparged into the boil pot.

As we brought the wort to a boil, we added 1/4 oz. of Simcoe hops as well as 20 oz. dried apricots. After 20 minutes, we added another 10 oz. of dried apricots, this time cut in half. At 50 minutes into the boil, we added 1 tsp. Irish Moss and 1 oz. Cascade hops. At flame-out, we added another 1 oz. Cascade hops for aroma.

This time, we strained the wort while hot (also doing a "hop back" by putting about 1/2 oz. Centennial hops in the chinois. Once strained, we cooled the wort in the plastic fermentation bucket, which seemed to work just as well.

OH- We also made a yeast starter for the first time, using 4 oz. of DME to 1 liter of water. We did this about 6-8 hours before pitching, right in the 12 lb. plastic honey jug.

The gravity reading read at about 1.062, some .006 above what we measured. I put this immediately at a higher efficiency, but Rachael reminded me we did boil 30 oz of apricots in the wort. So I guess we'll never know the efficiency.

The fermentation lock is raging at this point, so the starter is definitely a great plus. The biggest concern remains the apricot taste. While we only want an essence, there wasn't much apricot taste at all in the wort. We'll see how things taste when we rack to secondary; we may want to consider either adding the rest of the apricots to the carboy, or purchasing some of the Apricot Essence from Northern Brewer. We'll see!