Pro-Am Imperial Red with Rye

Although it was a lot of fun in the beginning, I rarely submit our beers to competitions anymore.  There was a point when I felt like judges’ feedback was the only place where I could get honest, constructive criticism, but now, with a large group of obsessed beer nerd friends, my options have expanded and the opinions of the judges no longer seem to hold as much weight as they used to.  With the homebrewing world growing and more and more brewers interested in passing the BJCP exam and later judging, I also found it extremely frustrating when you received two contradictory judging scores and notes.  That said, there is still one competition that I like to enter each year…the Puget Sound Pro-Am.

Although the Pro-Am competition is initially judged according to BJCP guidelines, it differs from other competitions in that local breweries select beers of their choosing to be scaled up and brewed at their breweries.  They don’t always select the top beer in each category and often they’re only looking for beers of a certain style.  If they do end up selecting yours though, the commercially brewed version will most likely be submitted to the Pro-Am competition at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.  

With the limited time and planning that we had, deciding on a brewing strategy for the competition was not a simple task.  Granted that we had some beers on hand that we could submit, we wanted to brew a few beers specifically for the competition that we believed could give us a leading edge.  

One thing that helped define a strategy for us was to look at what the trends were last year.  In years past, it seemed like whatever did well at the GABF would do well at the local Pro-Am the following year.  Two of last year’s winning GABF beers included rye and the 1^st place beer was an imperial red ale with rye (Red Velvet).  Given that rye’s a unique enough ingredient to make a beer stand out, yet it’s still easy to work with and produces repeatable results (as opposed to spices or the like), it seemed like a good option to incorporate into a recipe.  About a year ago, we brewed an imperial red ale that, as far as all our hop-forward beers went, turned out to be one of my favorites that we’ve produced.  Incorporating rye into the recipe seemed only natural and when the recipe for Red Velvet was printed in the November issue of Zymurgy, it turned out that our own recipe was extremely similar (with the acception of the rye addition).

With a few modifications to our imperial red ale recipe, we essentially were killing two birds with one stone.  I guess only time will tell if it’s a smart move or not, but using a unique-enough ingredient like rye and mimicking a winning style from last year seemed like a strategy worth trying.

Holden's Red

Recipe Specifics

---------------------

Batch Size (Gal): 6.0

Total Grain (lbs): 18.13

Anticipated OG: 1.087

Anticipated SRM: 17.3

Anticipated IBU: 90

Wort Boil Time: 90 minutes

Anticipated ABV: 9.5%

Grain

-------

69.0% - 12.5 lbs Maris Otter

16.5% - 3.0 lbs Flaked Rye

5.5% - 1.0 lb Crystal 60

5.5% - 1.0 lb Munich Malt

2.1% - 6oz. Crystal 120

1.4% - ¼ lb Pale Chocolate

Hops

-------

75 minutes – 40 grams Magnum (Pellets, 12.1% AA)

30 minutes – 30 grams Simcoe (Pellets, 11.5% AA)

10 minutes – 25 grams Amarillo (Pellets, 7.1% AA)

0 minutes – 40 grams Centennial (Pellets, 8.5% AA)
0 minutes – 20 grams Cascade (Pellets, 5.6% AA)

0 minutes – 15 grams Amarillo (Pellets, 7.1% AA)

Dry – 40 grams Amarillo
Dry – 40 grams Cascade

Dry – 40 grams Centennial

Yeast

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Wyeast 1056 American Ale (1500ml starter)

Water Profile and Additions

------------------------------------

Charcoal filtered Seattle Water

Mash Additions: ½ gram per gallon Chalk, ½ g/g baking soda.

Fermentation Addition (see notes): 6 grams gypsum, 2.4 grams Epsom salt, 3 grams table salt.

Mash Schedule

--------------------

60 minute rest at 152°

15 minute mash out rest at 168°

Sparged with 170° water

Notes

--------

3/4/2011 – Made 1 liter starter of 1.035 wort.

3/5/2011 – Added 500 ml to starter.

Brewed 3/6/2011 with Blake.

Doughed in at 158° and hit our 152° mash temp dead on.  Added mash mineral additions and hit 5.2 pH.   

Rested for 60 minutes and then sparged until we had 7.5 gallons in the kettle with a total of 638GUs.

Boiled for 90 minutes and with 15 minutes left, we added whirlflock and Wyeast yeast nutrient.

Chilled down to 66° and racked beer into carboy.  Started to oxygenate with tank 02 and airstone, but our tank was low so we only got about 10 seconds of 02 in there.  After realizing this, we shook the crap out of the carboy for another 5 minutes.

Started fermentation at 66°.

3/7/2011 - Realized we didn’t add the boil kettle mineral additions, so we boiled up a cup of water and added the minerals that we would have added into the kettle.  Water was cooled and then dumped into fermentor. 

3/10/2011 – Raised temp to 68°

3/22/2011 – Needed the space in the fermentation chamber, so I brought the carboy up to my office.  Ambient temp, ~70°.

3/23/2011 – Added dry hop additions to primary.

3/30/2011 – Wanted to get the beer off the dry hops, but since the beer was still very slowly fermenting, I transferred the beer to a C02 flushed carboy instead of kegging.

4/8/2011 – Crash cooled beer in basement fridge.  FG: 1.017

4/10/2011 – Kegged and carbonated to 2.6 volumes.

Tasting Review

Bourbon Wood-Aged Tripel

Every beer geek can probably remember back to the first craft beer they had that opened their eyes to the vast array of flavors that can be present in a beer.  For me, that beer was Chimay Grande Reserve.  Unlike anything I had ever had before, it drove my curiosity to explore other Belgian styles and before I knew it, Tripels became my new favorite.  To this day, I still love how the spiciness from the yeast and alcohol plays well on top of the soft malt character while the high carbonation helps to aid in a dry, slightly bitter finish.

As a homebrewer, brewing a Tripel isn’t the most exciting beer in the world to make.  Granted that it can be difficult to achieve the dryness and the right characteristics from the yeast without producing an overly hot beer, a grain bill comprised of mainly pilsner malt and cane sugar just doesn’t hold the same appeal that maybe a barleywine does.  To up the ante a little bit, I wanted to add another layer of complexity by incorporating the flavors that a beer often receives during extended aging in a bourbon barrel.

Before getting too excited about the simulated bourbon barrel aging, I wanted to make sure that the base beer wasn’t neglected and that it still retained the properties of a high quality Tripel.  To me, a lack of dryness and excessive alcohol heat are two of the most common flaws in this homebrewed style and so to combat this, I wanted to make sure that the base beer had plenty of easily fermentable sugars and that the fermentation temps were restrained.  The grist of primarily German pilsner malt was mashed long and low at a temp of 147° and then to the boil, nearly 18% of the total fermentables were added in the form of cane and candi sugar (it would have been fine with 100% cane sugar, but since I had a 1lb bag of clear candi syrup on hand, I decided to throw it in).  As for the fermentation, I pitched a 1500ml starter of Wyeast’s Trappist High Gravity yeast to the wort at 64°.  Even though this strain of yeast can handle much higher temps, I decided to keep it low initially to restrain the heat and excessive phenolics.  After a period of 36 hours, the temp was raised 1° per 24 hours until a max temp of 72° was reached to finish out the beer.

After primary fermentation, I started the simulated bourbon barrel aging process.  The beer was racked into a keg which contained 1 oak stave that had been soaking in Makers Mark for about 2 weeks.  I knew that this would not be quite enough oak or bourbon to impart the desired flavors, but I wanted to take it slow.  Part of my problem with other Bourbon Aged Tripels is that the bourbon is too forward and the subtleties of the base beer are lost.  I wanted this beer to be a quality Tripel first, with just a hint of bourbon and oak on the finish.  After three months, you really couldn’t perceive any bourbon or oak character, so I added two more oak staves and an 8^th of a cup of bourbon.  With another two weeks passing, the bourbon still wasn’t quite where I was aiming.  After letting the beer rest for one more week, I pulled out a glass and using a 1ml dosing syringe, I continued to add more bourbon until the appropriate balance was reached.  Scaling this amount up for the volume that I had in the keg, I ended up adding another 12mls.  

Bourbon and Oak aged Tripel

Recipe Specifics

------------------

Batch Size (Gal): 5.5

Total Grain(lbs): 10 ¼

Anticipated OG: 1.070

Anticipated SRM: 4.5

Anticipated IBU: 32.0

Wort Boil Time: 90 minutes

Anticipated AVB: 9%

Grain/Fermentables

--------------------

78.4% - 10.0 lbs German Pilsner

11.8% - 1.5 lbs cane sugar

7.8% - Clear Candi Syrup

1.5% - 3 oz. Aromatic Malt

0.5% - 1 oz. Biscuit Malt

Hops

-------------------

60 minutes – 40 grams Styrian Goldings (Pellets, 5.2% AA)

10 minutes – 20 grams Czech Saaz (Pellets, 5.5% AA)

Yeast
-------------------

Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity (1500ml Starter)

Water Profile and Additions
-----------------------------

Charcoal filtered Seattle Water

Mash Additions: 1 gram/gallon Calcium Chloride, ¼ gram/gallon Epsom Salt, 0.085 gram/gallon Baking Soda, and 0.2 gram/gallon Salt.

Sparge Additions: 1.3 gram/gallon Calcium Chloride

Mash Schedule

----------------

60 minute rest at 147°

15 minute mash out rest at 168°

Sparged with 170° water

Notes

----------------

10/28/2010 – made starter with 1 liter of 1.35 wort.

10/29/101 – added 500ml of wort to starter.

Brewed 10/30/2010 – solo.

Hit dough-in temp of 147 exactly and rested for 60 minutes.

Whirlflock and yeast nutrient added with 15 minutes to go in the boil.

Chilled down to 64°.  Ended with 6 gallons of 1.070 wort.  Aerated for 60 seconds with pure 02 and pitched yeast starter. After 36 hours, temp was raised 1 degree per day until 72° was reached.

12/11/2010 – Transferred to secondary.  Added 1 oak stave (1 inch by 1 ½ inch by ¼ inch) that had been boiled for 10 minutes and then soaked in Makers Mark for 12 days.  Secondary was moved down to the basement which was about 63°.  Gravity down to 1.005.

3/6/2011 – Bourbon and oak are extremely subtle…almost non-existent.  Added two more oak staves (both had been boiled) and about 1/8 cup of Makers.  Moved to fridge to lager.

3/11/2011 – Added 1 more oak stave.

3/29/2011 – Taste wasn’t exactly where I wanted it, but I started carbonating to 2.4 volumes anyway knowing I would add more bourbon later.

4/10/2011 – Using an 8oz sample, I gradually dosed bourbon until the right balance was reached.  After scaling this up to the full batch, I ended up adding another 12mls to the keg.

Bourbon Aged Russian Imperial Stout

Although not my favorite style in the world, a well made, nicely balanced bourbon barrel aged Russian Imperial Stout definitely holds my respect.  It’s a curious style that’s captivated my interest, not only because I like how the bourbon, roast, and sweetness meld, but because the commercial offerings vary wildly and they’re often regarded by beer connoisseurs as the best in the world (currently 13 of the top 25 beers on Beer Advocate are one form of an imperial stout or another).  

Last year, when we brewed our Imperial Autumn Maple, we discovered that the house yeast used by the Bruery is capable of extremely high attenuation rates (the gravity plummeted with that beer from 1.099 to 1.001).  Knowing this, along with the rumor that the Bruery uses this strain to ferment out their near 20% abv RIS Black Tuesday, we decided to experiment with the yeast and see if we could come up with our own RIS… hopefully with an ABV upwards of 17%.  Brewing such large beers can be a daunting task though, and, even though there are numerous accounts of how some commercial breweries choose to do so, when designing the recipe we decided to accept a few tips and forgo others.  

Especially in high gravity worts, yeast is your critical factor.  Most breweries who attempt to make 15% or higher ABV beers start with initial gravities around 1.100 and then continue to feed the yeast sugar throughout the secondary fermentation for three reasons: 1.) to avoid initially high osmotic pressures, 2.) to force the yeast to convert the more complex long chain dextrins before working on the simpler sugar additions, and 3.) to keep the yeast active in the increasingly toxic environment.  I’d like to say that we factored all of these considerations into our design, but since we knew we were working with an extremely high attenuating strain of yeast, we decided to roll the dice, forgo the osmotic pressure issue, and brew up a starting gravity of 1.135.  

As for creating easily fermentable sugars, we had a tough time deciding at what mash temperature to conduct the main saccharification rest.  On one hand, we wanted a wort with as relatively simple sugars as possible so that the yeast would have an easier time chewing through them (requiring a low mash temp), but on the other, we were dealing with a yeast that had a history of completely fermenting out high gravity worts and we didn’t want to be left with a thin bodied RIS.  If we mashed with too high of a temp, the yeast could have struggled with the longer chain dextrins and we might have ended up with a syrupy sweet mess.  In the end, we decided that doughing in at 146 degrees and then quickly raising our HERMS temp control to 153 would work out well.  With 30lbs of grain in the mash tun, raising the temp via the HERMS recirculation would not be an instant change.  The grains on the top would hit 153 quickly while those on the bottom would be slower to adjust.  Overall, it took about 15 minutes for the system to reach equilibrium which hopefully resulted in a good balance of simple and slightly more complex sugars.

Although we didn’t want to feed our beer up from 1.100, we did decide to make one sugar addition during primary fermentation.  After a vigorous nine days of fermenting, signs of slowing started to occur.  Based on experiences with the yam beer, we knew that this yeast would take about a month to slowly finish up the remaining sugars and so rather than having the highly alcoholic beer sit on the autolyzing yeast cake for the duration, we racked the beer over to mix with 1 lb of maple syrup patiently awaiting its demise in the secondary.  The suspended yeast made quick work of the new sugars and within 3 hours, a small krausen had formed on the surface.  

Finishing Hydrometer @ 1.024

A month later when we racked the beer into a keg for long term maturation, the gravity was down to 1.024.  To simulate aging the beer in a bourbon barrel, we also added in oak staves and about 2.5 cups of Makers Mark.  I’ve heard rumors that about 3% of Black Tuesday’s ABV can be attributed to remnant bourbon in the barrels, but in order to achieve that same 3% addition with our beer, we would have had to add about 11 cups of bourbon.  That seems excessively high, so rather than just making the assumption, we tested different amounts in a sampling glass before scaling up to the full addition.  At 6ml per ¾ cup, the flavor was just starting to make an appearance and so we decided to scale up that amount to 2.5 cups for the 5 gallon batch.  In another month or so, we’ll taste test and add more as necessary.  I’m expecting the beer to be able to handle probably another 2 – 3 cups and with that amount, we should finish up with a brew right around 17% abv.

 Bourbon Aged Russian Imperial Stout

Recipe Specifics

----------------------

Batch Size (Gal): 6.0
Total Grain (Lbs): 30.13
Anticipated OG: 1.147
Anticipated SRM: 81.0
Anticipated IBU: 97.4
Wort Boil Time: 90

Anticipated ABV: ~16.0% before bourbon, 17%+ after

Actual ABV: 16.1% after fermentation, final TBD

Grain

---------------------------

64.3% - 20.0 lbs Maris Otter

12.9% - 4 lbs Munich Malt

5.6% - 1 ¾ lb Roasted Barley

3.2% - 1 lb Flaked Barley

3.2% - 1 lb Maple Syrup

2.4% - ¾ lb Black Patent

2.4% - ¾ lb Chocolate Malt

1.6% - ½ lb CaraMunich 40

1.6% - ½ lb Special B

0.4% - 2 oz. Dark Molasses

Hops

------

80 grams Magnum (Pellets, 12.5% AA) @ 60 minutes

Yeast

-------

Bruery house strain – cultured from a bottle of Orchard White, grown up for our batch of Exploited Belgian Pale, and then pitched directly onto yeast cake.

Water Profile and Additions

------------------------------------

Charcoal filtered Seattle water

Mash Additions: 1.9 g/g baking soda and 0.25g/g chalk

Boil Kettle Additions: 1.0 g/g calcium chloride and 0.35 g/g Epsom salt (based on final volume of 6 gallons)

Mash Schedule

-------------------

Doughed in at 146

Immediately raised temp to 153 via HERMS, rested there for 90 minutes

15 minutes @ 168

Sparged with 172 degree H2O

Notes

-------

Brewed on 1/29/2011 with Blake

Doughed in to hit 146 as initial temp.  Immediately raised temp on HLT so HERMS was recirculating at 153.  With 30lbs of grain, the average temp of the mash for the first 15 minutes was probably right around 149.  Mashed for 90 minutes before raising the temp to 168.  After a stabilized temp was reached (30 minutes), temp was raised to 172 where we started the sparge.

Colorful foam right before the boil

Collected 8 ½ gallons of 1.126 wort.  Since our boil kettle is only 10 gallons, we had to boil for an hour to reduce the volume before we could add more.  At that point, we sparged another gallon of 1.065 wort.

Whirlflock, molasses, and yeast nutrient added at 15 minutes.

Chilled down to 66° and racked directly onto yeast cake.  After 60 seconds of pure O2, carboy was then placed in fermentation chamber set to 66°.  11 hours later, massive blow-off was occurring.  We removed the blow off hose and gave the wort an additional 30 second dose of pure O2. 

2/8/2011 – Gravity down to 1.034 and there’s a bubble coming out of the blow off hose about every 2 seconds..  Taste is still very sweet and thick.  Racked over to secondary with 1 lb (12 oz. by volume) of grade B maple syrup.

3/6/2011 – Gravity down to 1.024.  Racked over to keg and added 2.5 cups of Makers Mark and 3 bourbon soaked oak staves (about 29 sq. in. of surface area).  Will taste again in a month and add more oak and bourbon as necessary.

The body at this point has really thinned out and is just about perfect for an RIS.  There’s also a lot of boozy heat though that hopefully will mellow considerably in the months to come.  Although I like the mouth feel of the beer right now, the yeast really kicked off a lot of phenolics that I was not expecting.  I knew that it’s a Belgian type strain, but in our Imperial Autumn Maple, you don’t pick up on it that much.  With this beer, I was hoping that the roast notes would hide the phenolics a lot more than they apparently have.  We might have to rename this to a Bourbon Aged Belgian Imperial Stout…

4/28/11 - Sampled beer and there was very little bourbon flavor.  Added another 1 3/4 cps.  This brings the AVB up to about 17.2%. 

11/21/11 - Sampled beer again and it's amazing how the Belgian character has faded...it's nearly gone.  The bourbon and oak character still was below where I wanted it, so I added 0.6 oz (19 cubes) of American heavy toast oak and 12 oz. of Maker's Mark.

Exploited Belgian Pale Tasting

Normally when I’m brewing with an element that I haven’t used before (a strain of yeast, a new adjunct or specialty malt, etc), I try to find out as much info as I can about other brewers’ past experiences with it.  With this Belgian pale ale though, we were experimenting with a cultured strain of yeast from the Bruery where such information was basically non-existent.  Overall, I think it turned out alright though.  It’s not necessarily my favorite beer, but the flavors are enjoyable and the balance between sweet, bitter, and spice are just about spot on.  It’ll be great in the warmer months of summer and I’ll look forward to revisiting it again then.

Appearance – Very clear with a color somewhere between a dark golden and amber.  The thick, white,   rocky head faded relatively quickly, but the mild foamy bubbles stayed on the surface and clung to the glass through the last sip. 

Aroma – Solid malt nose and toasted grain with a bit more clove and spice than I was expecting.  No hop aroma whatsoever.

Taste – I’m getting a lot of grainy/biscuity malt at first, bordering on too much for my own preference.  Next time, if I were to brew this recipe again, I think I’d cut the biscuit addition in half.  There is a nice sweetness up front that I like with this style, but it’s not over the top and it’s balanced well with a clean, smooth bitterness on the finish.  I like the spicy yeast phenolics, but for a pale, they might be accentuated a bit too much.  Although it’s very, very mild, I’m also picking up a slight orange fruitiness.

Mouthfeel – Even with such a low final gravity, this beer had a nice medium body.  No alcohol warmth and carbonation is about medium.  I’d probably like a touch more, but it’s not at the point where it’s noticeably low.  

Drinkability and notes – Overall, I think it’s a nicely balanced beer with a lot of great flavor for the alcohol content.  It’s not perfect by any means, and there are things that I would change for next time (reduction of biscuit, possibly lower fermentation temp, etc).  That said, I like that it has a lot of the flavors that you typically associate with the higher alcohol blonde Belgian ales, yet is lower in abv and lighter on the sweetness.  It’ll be a great sessionable beer for a hot summer day.

The Exploited Belgian Pale

During the fall of ’09, our attempt at cloning the Bruery’s Autumn Maple led us to an interesting discovery:  whatever yeast they use is a complete ass kicker and unlike any other commercial strain we’ve played around with before.  The beer started out with an original gravity somewhere in the ballpark of 1.100 and after a month-long fermentation, it finished at an astonishingly low 1.001.  Not only was it impressive that the strain could chew through so much sugar regardless of the increasing alcohol content, but the beer itself still retained a decent amount of body without being overly thick or chewy.  It’s an incredible strain and one that we’ve wanted to play around with ever since. 

Fast forward a year later and we’re at it again.  Whether or not the Bruery uses their house strain to ferment out their near 20% abv RIS Black Tuesday, we decided that this would be a great style to inoculate with their strain to test out its limits.  With the relative ease that the yeast converted our autumn maple wort into a 13% abv beer, I’m confident that we’ll end up with a stout upwards of 16%.  In order to produce such a beer however, we’ll need a massive amount of yeast at pitching time.

According to the pitching rate calculator on Mr. Malty.com, a beer with an OG of 1.135 would need about 441 billion cells of yeast to complete fermentation.  Since we’re playing around with yeast harvested from the dregs of a bottle, stepping up a starter to achieve that amount of cells would not only require about 1 ½ - 2 gallons of starter wort, but it would also be risky since at each step-up period we’d open up an opportunity to unintentionally introduce a spoiler organism.  Rather than taking that long and risky route, we decided to build up a starter until we had just enough yeast to ferment 5 gallons of 1.050 wort and then later use the yeast cake from said beer for the big RIS experiment.

Although the spices and high alcohol content of our autumn maple clone somewhat masked the flavors from the Bruery’s yeast, it is a Belgian strain that does produce a moderate amount of phenols.  With this being the case, it only seemed appropriate that, for the purpose of this cell development beer, we brew a simple Belgian Pale in order to let the flavors of the yeast shine through and be a star for a brief moment in time.

The Exploited Belgian Pale Ale

Recipe Specifics

----------------------

Batch Size (Gal): 6.0
Total Grain (Lbs): 10.0
Anticipated OG: 1.050
Anticipated SRM: 6.7
Anticipated IBU: 23.2
Wort Boil Time: 90

Anticipated ABV: 6.4%

Actual ABV: 6.0%

Grain

---------------------------

77.5% - 7.75lbs German Pilsner

10.0% - 1.0 lbs CaraVienne Malt

5.0% - ½ lb Flaked Oats

5.0% - ½ lb Biscuit Malt

2.5% - ¼ lb Aromatic Malt

Hops

------

30 grams Czech Saaz (Pellets, 5.0% AA) @ 60 minutes

10 grams Czech Saaz (Pellets, 5.0% AA) @ 10 minutes

Yeast

-------

Bruery house strain – cultured from a bottle of Orchard White

Water Profile and Additions

------------------------------------

Charcoal filtered Seattle water

Mash Additions: 0.5g/g gypsum, 0.5g/g calcium chloride + 2ml Lactic acid

Boil Kettle Additions: 0.4 g/g gypsum, 0.4 g/g calcium chloride, 0.5 g/g Epsom salt, 0.3 g/g salt (based on final volume of 6 gallons)

Mash Schedule

-------------------

60 minutes @ 152

15 minutes @ 168

Sparge with 172 degree H2O

Notes

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Brewed on 1/15/2011 with Blake

1/8/2011 – Used an inoculating needle to grab a few cells from a slant of Orchard White yeast that was plated back in October of 2010.  Cells were mixed with 10ml of 1.035 worth.  Once fermentation started, I added another 10ml and then 24 hours later, another 20ml.  24 hours after that, I stepped it up to 50ml, then 250 ml, 1000ml, and eventually, 2000ml.  All steps had about 24hrs in between.  Starter was placed in fridge about 24hrs before pitching.

1/15/2011 – With the known high attenuation rate of the yeast, we increased the amount of CaraVienne to 10% in order to prevent the beer from seeming completely dried out. 

Mashed at 152 for 60 minutes.

Efficiency was higher than anticipated and we collected 5 gallons of 1.060 wort (added 2.5 gallons of filtered water so that after a 90 minute boil, we’d end up with 6 gallons of 1.050 wort). 

Whirlflock and yeast nutrient added at 15 minutes.

Chilled to and pitched decanted yeast at 64°.  After 60 seconds of pure O2, carboy was then placed in fermentation chamber set to 66°.  After 48 hours, temp was raised 1 degree per 24 hrs until 70° was reached.  Held at 70° for the duration (6 more days).

1/27/2011 – Gravity down to 1.004. Crash cooled.

1/29/2011 – Kegged and carbonated.

2/27/2011 - First Tasting