I've been producing beer a little faster than blog entries, but not much. My life has gotten really busy. I have a puppy and a dissertation that demand a lot of my time. The solution, as brewer, has been to increase my batch size to ten gallons. I don't produce in the same volume as before, but this helps to balance the significant reduction in brew days per month.

I have an IPA waiting to go into my cooler, when either my stout or old ale kicks it. That IPA was made form the same wort as the stout. I made one gallon of beer with a half pound of roasted barley, a quarter pound of black pattent, and a pound of light dried malt extract. I dumped some IPA wort on that. It made a stout. I was pleased by those results.

Yesterday I made ten more gallons, all pale ale. The ten gallons of wort were produced with 19 pounds of maris otter malt, half a pound of 40L crystal and half a pound of 120L crystal. The hops schedule was 3 oz. of 6.3%AA Challenger for 90 and 1 oz. same for 30. I split the wort into two fermenters; I pitched White Labs English Ale yeast on one and Safale's American Ale Yeast on the other. For hop aroma, I'm dry hopping with an ounce of Kent Goldings for the english and an ounce of palisade for the american.

Yesterday's mash was 148 for 37 mintues, followed by 20 minutes at 156. That should produce some great fermentability. I have really liked the results of highly fermentable worts paired with low attenuating yeasts like the White Labs English Ale, so that beer should turn out nice.

The safale american ale yeast is good. I've used it a few time lately. It takes longer to clarify than White Labs california ale and the fermentation may be a little less clean, it attenuates similarly, and ultimately makes a good american ale. I've never used palisade hops, but so long as it smells like a hop, I'm sure everything will be fine.