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Click here for the latest photo library of the April 17, 2005 brew session of a Strong American Stout. The accompanying recipe will be posted shortly.

Subrew.com Recipes

The Inaugural Subrew -- Subrew Pale Ale:

This beer was brewed by Sean and Chris one month prior to the final Eugene autocross events of the 2000 season, and was served at the post-race end-of-season party and Subrew Race Team Inaugural Ball. This beer is easy to make, and even easier to drink.

Ingredients:

8 lbs American 2-row Malt
1 lb 20l Crystal Malt
2oz Chinook Hops
White LabsEnglish (WLP001) or California (WLP002) Liquid Ale Yeast

Brewing Procedure:

• Mix grains together and crush.
• Heat 9 qts of water to 170 degrees F.
• Add crushed grains to water and mix thoroughly.
• After mixing, the mash should stabilize at between 148 and 152 degrees. Adjust temperature by heating or cooling if necessary.
• Hold mash at temperature for 1 hour. While waiting, heat 5gallons of water to 170 degrees.
• After mash rest is over, raise mash temperature to 170 degrees by adding boiling water or by heating.
• Set the grain bed by recirculating the hot wort through your sparge vessel for a few minutes.
• Sparge (rinse) mash with 170 degree water, extracting 6 to 6.5 gallons of sweet wort.
• Bring wort to boil.
• At boil, add 1 oz. Chinook hops.
• At 30 minutes into boil, add .5 oz Chinook hops.
• At 55 minutes into boil, add .5 oz Chinook hops.
• After boiling for one hour, cool wort to 70 degrees and transfer to six gallon fermentation vessel.
• Pitch yeast and aerate wort.
• Ferment at appropriate temperature for yeast strain (68-73 degrees for California strain, 65-68 degrees for English strain) for 5 days.
• Transfer wort to secondary 5 gallon fermentation vessel, and ferment an additional week.
• Bottle condition or force carbonate finished beer.
• If you can stand it, a couple of weeks of cold aging will mellow the somewhat harsh bitterness that can sometimes occur with the high-alpha Chinook hops.
• I forgot to measure the original and final specific gravities of the wort, so the alcohol content of this particular batch is not precisely known. Assuming a normal extraction rate from the mash, we can assume this is a 3.5% to 4.0% ABV beer.

The use of the Chinook hops makes this a decidedly American style pale ale, whether the California or English yeast strain is used. In this particular example, we used the English yeast, which isn't quite as attenuative, and therefore leaves behind some slight malty sweetness. I believe this slight maltiness and the hops balance nicely. If you prefer a drier, crisper beer, the California yeast will do that for you, while also slightly raising the alcohol content.

Some brewers dislike the Chinook hops, but for this type of beer this hop variety offers ease of brewing (high alpha content requires less quantity for bittering), and a distinctive American flavor and aroma. The hops lend a noticable peach/apricot aroma to the beer which is rather pleasant, and a nice precursor to its flavor.

A beer Sean made from a similar recipe to this won a blue ribbon in the American Pale Ale category at this year's "Mill Creek Classic" brewing festival in Salem, Oregon.

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Subrew Export Stout:

This beer was brewed on 1/25/01 by Sean. It just went into the keg (2/17/01).

Winter is a delightful time for stouts, and what better beer to make as the first batch of 2001?!

This recipe turned out quite nicely. The large quantities of chocolate malt and roasted barley make this a rich, toasty flavored brew. I was a bit worried about having over-hopped it, but it seems to be nicely balanced, with a slight hint of extra hops that gives it an enjoyable kick. Definately not overpowering though.

This should be an excellent beer to drink with a nice steak or a big slab of barbecued tuna. I might just have to grill something up to find out for sure...

Ingredients:

11 lbs American 2-row Malt
1/2 lb 120l Crystal Malt
1/2 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb Chocolate Malt
1 1/4oz Chinook Hops
1 oz East Kent Goldings Hops
White Labs English (WLP001) Liquid Ale Yeast

Brewing Procedure:

• Mix grains together and crush.
• Heat 13 qts of water to 172 degrees F.
• Add crushed grains to water and mix thoroughly.
• After mixing, the mash should stabilize at around 152 to 154 degrees. Adjust temperature by heating or cooling if necessary.
• Hold mash at temperature for 1 hour. While waiting, heat 5gallons of water to 170 degrees.
• After mash rest is over, raise mash temperature to 170 degrees by adding boiling water or by heating.
• Set the grain bed by recirculating the hot wort through your sparge vessel for a few minutes.
• Sparge (rinse) mash with 170 degree water, extracting 6 to 6.5 gallons of sweet wort.
• Bring wort to boil.
• At boil, add 1 oz. Chinook hops.
• At 30 minutes into boil, add 1/4 oz Chinook hops and 1 oz Goldings hops.
• After boiling for one hour, cool wort to 70 degrees and transfer to six gallon fermentation vessel.
• Pitch yeast and aerate wort.
• Ferment at appropriate temperature for yeast strain (65-68 degrees) for 5 days.
• Transfer wort to secondary 5 gallon fermentation vessel, and ferment an additional week.
• Bottle condition or force carbonate finished beer.
• The starting and final gravities of this batch (and therefore the alcohol content) are not known. One of these days I'll remember to measure the gravities...

The use of the Chinook hops is somewhat unorthodox in a stout, but I have a bunch of them on hand, and they're nice because of the high alpha content. I was willing to compromise stylistic accuracy for convenience in this case, and have seen good results with similar recipes in the past.

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Subrew Better Bitter (February 9, 2002):

Since it's winter time, I've been drinking quite a few winter ales, stouts, and porters. I felt like mixing it up a bit, so I decided to make an English Best Bitter.

Ingredients:

9 lbs Muntons 2-row Malt
1/2 lb 60l Crystal Malt
4oz Willamette Hops
White LabsBedford (platinum edition) English Liquid Ale Yeast (WLP006)

Brewing Procedure:

• Mix grains together and crush.
• Heat 9.5 qts of water to 170 degrees F.
• Add crushed grains to water and mix thoroughly.
• After mixing, the mash should stabilize at between 148 and 152 degrees. Adjust temperature by heating or cooling if necessary.
• Hold mash at temperature for 1 hour. While waiting, heat 5gallons of water to 170 degrees.
• After mash rest is over, raise mash temperature to 170 degrees by adding boiling water or by heating.
• Set the grain bed by recirculating the hot wort through your sparge vessel for a few minutes.
• Sparge (rinse) mash with 170 degree water, extracting 6 to 6.5 gallons of sweet wort.
• Bring wort to boil.
• At boil, add 2 oz. Willamette hops.
• At 30 minutes into boil, add 1 oz Willamette hops.
• At 55 minutes into boil, add 1 oz Willamette hops.
• After boiling for one hour, cool wort to 70 degrees and transfer to six gallon fermentation vessel.
• Pitch yeast and aerate wort.
• Ferment at appropriate temperature for yeast strain for 5 days.
• Transfer wort to secondary 5 gallon fermentation vessel, and ferment an additional week.
• Bottle condition or force carbonate finished beer.

I've never used the Bedford platinum edition ale yeast, but it's supposed to offer a distinctive ester profile becoming to English style ales.

Well, this beer is long gone -- it was a great batch! I entered the last bit of it in the Oregon Homebrew Festival held May 17th and 18th, 2002. It garnered a solid 2nd place ribbon in the highly-competitive English Bitter and Pale Ales category.

More recipes coming as soon as I design them...

Subrew.com Brewing Equipment

It took quite a bit of experimentation to come up with all the various pieces that currently make up the brewery. Several items have been tried and retired. The current setup listed here has been in use relatively unchanged for quite a while now, and has proven more than satisfactory. Sure, I could use more expensive equipment (having everything made of stainless comes to mind), but I don't personally believe it would be worth the expense.

Brewing gear:

Mash/lauter tun: 5-gallon Rubbermaid water cooler with "Phil's Phalse Bottom"
Sparge water storage/dispenser: 5-gallon Rubbermaid water cooler
Boil kettle: 8-gallon immersion canner with stainless false bottom
Spare kettle: 8-gallon immersion canner
Grain mill: BrewTek grain mill
Heat source: "King Cooker" 100,000 BTU propane burner
Wort chiller: Home-made copper coil type
Miscellaneous:

3-tier custom steel sparge/lauter/boil rack
Thermometer
Spoons
Gloves
Spare burner
2 propane tanks

Fermentation gear:

6-gallon glass fermenter (primary)
Two 5-gallon glass fermenters (secondary)
Racking cane

Kegging and bottling gear:

5lb CO₂ cylinder with 60psi regulator
Three 5-gallon Cornelius soda kegs
Dedicated beer refrigerator
Two through-door fridge taps
One picnic tap
Bottle cleaning sulphiter and draining tree
Bottle brush
Capper

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This document was last modified on Sunday August 14, 2005
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