After a 4 or 5 year hiatus, I’ve resumed brewing beer. Here’s the recipe I made last night. I’m calling it Oxtail Ale because I’m hoping it will be ready in time to serve at my Lunar New Year dinner party, celebrating the year of the ox… and because as the wort boiled, I was marinating oxtails for a test recipe.
Brewing was a bit of a mess since I’m out of the habit, but a few drops of burned malt and a separate boil for the finishing hops shouldn’t do any harm. I realize this isn’t the sort of recipe anyone is looking for on my blog, but I keep it here so I won’t forget or lose it.
- 0.5# Special Roast malt
- 1# Crystal Malt (40L)
- 5.5# amber malt extract
- 1 oz. Centennial hops
- 1 oz. Tettnanger hops (pellet)
- Dry English ale yeast (Safale s-04 11.5g packet)
- Heat 1.5 gallons of water to 160 degrees.
- Crack grains with a rolling pin, tie up in cheesecloth and submerge in water. Steep for 1/2 hour.
- Remove grains from water, add 1 gallon tepid water, malt extract and Centennial hops, stirring to dissolve extract.
- Boil wort for one hour, adding Tettnanger hops for last minute of boil.
- Pour 2 gallons cold water into fermenter, Strain and sparge wort into fermenter. Add water to make 5 gallons.
- When temperature drops below 75, add yeast, stopper and fermentation lock.
(Note original gravity reading: 1.022, but it looked less dense at the top, where I poured from into my hydrometer flask)
I so can’t wait to try it!
OH NO! Brewtastrophe you say?
Mmm I remember how delicious last year’s Lunar New Year party was. Hope I can attend again!
Brewtastrophe averted, Rogue! I came home to discover that I used a packet of the randiest yeast on Earth. Unwilling to just make sweet love to the sugars, it’s throwing a raging fermentorgy in my carboy. There was beer foam all over my kitchen.
I feared the worst, but the kindly folks at the HomeBrewTalk Forums say not to worry and offer a simple solution to keep my fermenter locked without turning my kitchen into a giant beer bubble bath.