Nut Brown Ale

September 23, 2012

I want another beer to serve at my upcoming Halloween party. Something suitable for a chilly autumnal night yet something that will be ready in four weeks. This is it: Northern Brewer's Nut Brown Ale!

My brother came over and we filled my keggle up with 7 gallons of water. I had just bought a new burner from Northern Brewer and wanted to try it out. Since I already had a high-pressure regulator I decided to spend less money and just get the bare-bones burner (for which I welded together a simple stand). Holy Mackerel does that thing put out the BTUs! I wasn't timing it at the beginning but it got the water too hot too fast (we needed to steep the grains at something like 170°F for twenty minutes but that burner had the water over 200°F before we even had the bag ready). So, yeah, if you're looking for a powerful propane burner this Banjo is the way to go.

Anyway. We pretty much followed the kit's instructions except that we did it as a full boil rather than a partial and we filled my 6.5 gallon carboy instead of making only 5 gallons (so our OG was too low: 1.036 @ 79°F - yeah, it was pretty warm out for late September in Minnesota).

Still, it smells great and I think this will turn out to be a fine "session" nut brown when served at the party in four weeks.

[October 3] Racked from primary to secondary. So far so good. SG: 1.012 @ 72°F. On track for... 3.3%? Yeah, that's too low. I probably should have added some more sugar to the primary. I'm sure this will still be drinkable so all is not lost. But next time I'll be more careful.