Hex Nut Brown Ale
"An attempt at a Goose Island-favorite clone. The beer that helped me like beer."

Recipe:
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4.00 lb		Amber Extract (LME)
2.00 lb		2-Row (grain)
1.00 lb		Crystal 60L (grain)
8.00 oz		Victory Malt (grain)
2.00 oz		Chocolate Malt (grain)
1.00 tsp	Irish Moss

Hops:
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1.00 oz Willamette (4.5% AA - 4.5 AAU)(60 min)

Yeast:
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5.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient

White Labs "Irish Ale Yeast" WLP004
Best Before: Jul-26-09
Lot Number: 10041045081

otes:
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5.25 gal 
OG: 1.044
FG: ??

2009/15/06
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Made starter with 2 cups (1 pint) water, 1/2 cup DME, and ~1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient.
After starter cooled on stove, it was transfered to a 750 ml wine bottle.
After wort felt cool enough, yeast was pitched.
Sanitised aluminum foil cap was added to wine bottle to keep air debris out.
Bottle was swirled to mix up yeast.

2009/16/07
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Starter was succesful.  
Agitated yeast occasionally.

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18 Cups of water at 170 F.  Adding grain bag brought temp down to mid 150s. 
Held temp between 150 and 160 for the next 60 min. 
Temperature spiked as high as 175, and as low as 148.
High temp spiked at about the remaining 20 minutes, and may have led to lower SG than expected. 

Sparged at 155 - 175 for 10 minutes (18 cups of water also). 
Combined sparge and mash together with 12 cups of water (3 gal total now) and brought to a boil.

Lid was required to create full boil. 

60 minutes remaining - all hops (in clean grain bag) were added (1 oz total) 

0 minutes remaining - Removed hops bag.

0 minutes remaining - 4 lbs of LME was stired into batch. Irish Moss was added to grain bag with hops with yeast nutrient.

The wort was not boiling after the LME was added, so I let the batch come back to a boil for a 10 minutes before turning off the stove.

Cooled pot in sink with for about 30 minutes.
Temp of pot on stove after a few minutes was in the 180's F.
Pot in sink cooled to mid 90's before transfering to carboy.
Poured into carboy... minor clogs from hops.

Added enough water to fill carboy to 4.5 gal to take specific gravity.
SG at 4.5 was aprox 1.051 

Added 0.75 gal of water.
Pitched pint of yeast starter (70 F)(weee!).
Added another 1/2 gal of water
SG at 5.7 gal: 1.044  (A bit lower than teh 1.047 that I was aiming for, but still within style range.)

Color easily 25+ SRM.

Protiens and debris already sinking to bottom of carboy.

2009/17/08
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Temperature at 0830 was approximately 65 F.
Fermenation has taken off, but is slow at the moment.
Color is dark brown almost black.
No noticable aroma besides the lingering aroma from last night boiling wort.

2009/10/9
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Batch turned out very good and balanced.
Keg has been empty for a couple of weeks.
Next time I might pull back a bit on the hops.
Color was brown.
Aroma had nice hop notes, and a bit of malty note.
Initial malty flavor followed by clean hops. 
Great rocky head that stayed with the beer.