Benn Naughty Ale Part 2

About the time I was brewing the Big Ben Pale Ale kit, I was working with a relative who has the last name Benn. I enjoyed working with him so much that I decided to name my first batch Benn Naughty Ale.

I was a little pressed for time on this batch because I didn't anticipate how long it would take to heat such a great amount of liquid. Thus I only did a 20 minute steep with the grains. I also ended up only doing a 50 minute boil instead of a full hour.

At the end of the boil and after cooling I measured the specific gravity at 1.044.

I added the yeast and threw it into the primary fermenter.

I made a slight mistake with the volume of the wort. Instead of 5 gallons I ended up with 5 and 3/4 gallons. Oops.

Benn Naughty Ale Part 1

The first beer I brewed I started on July 2nd. I decided to start brewing with kits from Midwest Supplies. I think I'll do a few kits and learn from the kits before I start trying to brew from scratch.

There is a great English Ale called Boddington's Pub Ale.

Boddingtons is an English beer, originally from Manchester, United Kingdom that has been brewed for more than 200 years. The bitter is now sold in over 30 countries worldwide, and can be drunk on tap around the world in countries as diverse as New Zealand, China, the United States, and Canada.

The Strangeways Brewery was founded by two grain merchants, Thomas Caister and Thomas Fry, in 1778. ^[1] The location of the brewery, just outside the city centre, was chosen to avoid a grain tax levied by local mills that belonged to Manchester Grammar School.

Henry Boddington joined the brewery in 1832 as a traveller, and eventually rose up to become a partner in the company. In 1853 he borrowed money to become the sole owner of the enterprise.

I wanted to try an English Ale for my first beer. I settled on the Big Ben Pale Ale kit from Midwest Supplies.

Equipment Needed to Brew

I got all of my equipment from a brewing supply store in Minneapolis called Midwest Supplies. I bought a kit that had almost everything I needed to get started.


It was missing a few things that make brewing a lot easier.

One thing it was missing is a http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=7733.
You need a wort chiller because you have to cool your boiled beer ingredients down (wort) to lower than 80 degrees before you add the yeast. A wort chiller does a 5 gallon batch in 10 minutes. The quicker you cool the wort the better.

The next thing you need is a wine thief.
A thief allows you to pull liquid out of your fermenter very easily. You need to be able to do this so that you can take specific gravity readings.

The final thing you need is a bottle tree.
It makes it really easy to sanitize your bottles and dry them.

Brewing

I am at the very beginning of a new hobby. I have wanted for a long time to brew up some tasty beer but for various reasons I never got around to it. The closest I got was making some root beer but I was only able to make one batch. It exploded all over the kitchen and that was the end of that.

I made a visit to Monticello a few years ago.

I was very impressed by Thomas Jefferson. As it turns out he was also a brewer.
I don't know how long this hobby will last but I am really enjoying it so far. A blog is really well suited to brewing because you have to keep good records so that you can figure out what went right and what went wrong. Reproducibility is the goal.