Now for this project, I bottle up about a case of the cream ale for some of my “brew bartering” because my brother-in-law offered me his old 5lb CO2 tank for 1 case of cream ale. I was sold on that deal!

I think it’s going to need to be inspected and filled, but its well worth it just the same. Now with the 2 tap jockey box Nick and I built (I will put up some pics pretty soon), I will have a travel tank!

Back to the beer at hand; the cream ale. This brew finished off at 1.011 and has a nice sweet flavor to it. It’s a really good session beer and I would like to think that its a good example of the style. It needs a little cold store to properly clear out, but in the end, it should be pretty clear.

For bottling, instead of using my bottling bucket, I tried something a guy in my brew club told me about. I primed the whole batch as if I was going to bottle it and put it in the keg. From here I put enough pressure on the keg from the CO2 to seal the keg properly and shook it to mix it.

I turned the keg down to about 4 or 5 PSI and used my party tap with my bottling wand on the end (without the spring loaded tip) and proceeded to fill bottles from the keg. This was a pretty good way to do this I must say. It was not perfect, but it was a nice alternative and allowed me to bottle and keg in two steps.

I also racked over the Harry Porter which should be a very good brew. I took a taste and the anise in it was good. Not a lot of nose or flavor, but there was a bite. Interesting because there was still a very distinct “porter” flavor to the brew that I was concerned the anise might overwhelm.

This is most likely my last post before x-mas so to all you out there; good night now!

To Cletus and the rest of the guys at Monday Night Brewery – Merry Christmas!

The recipe is pretty straight forward:

You don’t wanna why it’s ‘Cream Ale’
Brewer: Travis&Nick
Asst Brewer: Meatball
Style: Cream Ale
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
————————–
Batch Size: 10.00 gal
Boil Size: 12.55 gal
Estimated OG: 1.040 SG
Estimated Color: 4.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 15.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————
Amount Item
14.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 74.7 %
3.00 lb Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) 16.0 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 10L (10.0 SRM) 5.3 %
0.75 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 4.0 %
1.50 oz Saaz [4.00%] (60 min) 12.2 IBU
0.50 oz Saaz [4.00%] (30 min) 3.1 IBU
1 Pkgs Kolsch Yeast (Wyeast Labs #2565) (Yeast Cake from Kolsch)

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 18.75 lb
—————————-
Name Description
Mash In Add 5.86 gal of water at 170.5 F158.0 F 45 min
Mash Out Add 2.34 gal of water at 196.6 F168.0 F 10 min

The plan is to fly sparge on this one, flying in the face of the advice from Ted Honestly I have a hard on for fly sparging because I have never done it, I need to get over that hump before I can move on and make an educated decision about which I prefer. (Are the perverse overtones of this post too blatant?)