Sweet Potato ESB (3-gallon/11-L All-Grain Recipe)

April 30, 2014 by 1 Comment

NCI5_POTATOLast week, I posted an article on brewing with tubers. I used my sweet potato ESB recipe as an example. Here is that recipe formulated to be brewed with a simple 3-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewing setup. With this 3.0-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewing setup, you can brew all-grain beers in your kitchen and have everything fit on your countertop. There are also some fringe benefits to brewing at this scale — you don’t need to make a yeast starter for this beer, the wet T-shirt method works well for cooling fermenters at this scale, and your heating and cooling times can be very quick. (See our post on small batch brewing for more.) This is a great way for apartment dwellers to brew all-grain batches. The only downside is that you yield 3.0 gallons (11 L) of beer rather than 5.0 gallons (19 L).

There is also a 5.0-gallon all-grain version of this recipe. For other 3.0-gallon all-grain recipes, see the links at the bottom of this post.

 

Sweet Potato ESB

by Chris Colby

All-grain with starchy adjunct, English units

 

DESCRIPTION

This is an ESB (Extra Special Bitter) with an interesting orange color due to using sweet potatoes as an adjunct. The sweet potatoes do not add any flavor or aroma, just the color (and some fermentable sugars when they are mashed).

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3-gallon (11-L) All-Grain Golden Ale

April 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment

368px-Ah,_what_a_lovely_maid_it_is!_by_Elmer_Boyd_SmithBrewing smaller batch sizes is something that many homebrewers are exploring, whether for considerations of space or to brew a greater variety beers. This is another recipe that can be brewed with a simple 3-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewing setup. With this 3.0-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewing setup, you can brew all-grain beers in your kitchen and have everything fit on your countertop. There are also somes fringe benefits to brewing at this scale — you don’t need to make a yeast starter when using liquid yeast at specific gravities around 13 ° Plato (roughly 1.052) or less, the wet T-shirt method works well for cooling fermenters at this scale, and your heating and cooling times can be very quick. (See our post on small batch brewing for more.) This is a great way for apartment dwellers to brew all-grain batches. The only downside is that you yield 3.0 gallons (11 L) of beer rather than 5.0 gallons (19 L).

There are also 5-gallon all-grain and extract versions of this recipe. For other 3-gallon all-grain recipes, see the links at the bottom of this post.

 

“Freyja’s” Eyes

Golden ale

by Chris Colby

All-grain; English units

 

DESCRIPTION

A crisp golden ale with a grainy and bready pale malt flavor. Hop bitterness and flavor are quite high for this type of beer, but not to the point of masking the malt character. The relatively high pitching rate and low fermentation temperatures yield a fairly clean fermentation, even though a Belgian yeast strain is used.

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The Cure from Cork (3-Gallon/11-L All-Grain Dry Stout Recipe)

February 24, 2014 by 1 Comment
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Mmmm . . . dry stout.

Here is an all-grain recipe for a dry stout that can be brewed on a simple 3-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewery. It is the same as the 5-gallon (19-L) all-grain recipe, just scaled to 3 gallons (11 L). (There is also a 5-gallon (19-L) partial mash version.) This same brewery setup can be used for countertop partial mashes.

This recipe is not meant to be a clone of Murphy’s Pub Draught, but it is very similar. At a low ABV (4.1%), it makes a great session beer. In addition, if you’re trying to shed a few pounds, the Calorie count for 12 oz. (355 mL) of dry stout is around 125.

For 3.0 gallons (11 L) of beer at this original gravity (9.5 °Plato, OG 1.038) , you do not need to make a yeast starter when using a tube or XL smack pack of liquid yeast. In fact, you’ll be overpitching slightly (although not to a degree that will negatively affect your beer). One key to brewing this beer well is not to oversparge. Follow the volume of wort to collect given in the recipe rather than sparging until you have your full pre-boil volume.

 

The Cure from Cork 

(Murphy’s-like Dry Stout)

by Chris Colby

All-grain; English units

 

DESCRIPTION

This is a dry stout reminiscent of Murphy’s Pub Draught, now sold in widget cans. Murphy’s stout is slightly mellower — a little less bitter with a hint of chocolate and caramel in the malt — than Guinness, and (in my opinion) also tastes better when carbonated with CO2, as opposed to pushed with beer gas. If you like session ales — and are disappointed you can’t find Murphy’s except in widget cans — this is a great recipe to try.

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Patrick Henry Pale Ale (3-gallon/11-L All-Grain Recipe)

February 21, 2014 by 1 Comment
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“Give me liberty or give me . . . you know, what, liberty will great. I’ll stick with liberty.”

With small batch brewing taking off in popularity and readers of this site enjoying the article about my simple 3-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewery, I decided to post a series of all-grain recipes scaled to 3 gallons (11 L). I’ve already posted my porter, and here’s my pale ale. (For reference, see the 5-gallon (19-L) recipe, or countertop partial mash formulation, if you’d like.)

For 3 gallons (11 L) of beer at this original gravity (13 °Plato, OG 1.052) , you do not need to make a yeast starter when using a tube or XL smack pack of liquid yeast.

 

Patrick Henry Pale Ale

by Chris Colby

All-grain; English units

 

DESCRIPTION

This is my basic American-style pale ale. I’ve brewed this recipe — slightly tweaking it every time — over 30 times and it’s a great “go-to” beer. I really like the combination of Centennial, Cascade and Amarillo late hops and I use this combo in most of my other pale-ale-like beers, including my sweet potato ESB. The only non-standard part of this recipe is the tiny amount of chocolate malt added. This changes the hue of the beer slightly, and can be omitted if you want.

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3-Gallon All-Grain Recipe Series (I: Porter)

February 19, 2014 by 3 Comments
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Mmmm . . . porter.

Back in August of last year, I posted an article about my 3-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewing setup. I have a fancy schmancy 10-gallon (38-L) all-grain rig, composed of three 15-gallon (57 L) pots on a frame . . . and a nice 5-gallon (19 L) brewery, composed of two 10-gallon (19-L) pots and a (legally) converted half-barrel for the HLT . . . and in a pinch I have a 20-gallon (76 L) pot and a propane burner stand that will hold it. But I digress.

Nonetheless, with my simple 3.0-gallon (11-L) all-grain brewing setup, I can brew in my kitchen and escape the heat of summer. And there are several fringe benefits to brewing at this scale. The biggest is that you don’t need to make a yeast starter when using liquid yeast at specific gravities around 13 ° Plato (roughly 1.052) or less. One fresh White Labs tube or Wyeast XL smack pack, at 100 billion cells, is sufficient. Also, if you don’t have a fermentation chamber, the wet T-shirt method works well at this scale (as the surface area to volume ratio is higher in smaller batches). Plus, your heating and cooling times can be very quick, making for a somewhat shorter brew day. In addition, you don’t need to use a wort chiller — cooling the brewpot in your kitchen sink works fine if you have the time to change the cooling water several times and 5–10 lbs. (~2.5–5 kg) of ice for the final leg of cooling. In retrospect, I really wish I had thought of this when I was living in an apartment in Boston. The only downside is that you yield 3 gallons (11 L) of beer rather than 5 gallons (19 L). [Read more…]

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