I'm sparging batch 189 again to make a lighter second-runnings beer. Since 189 is an old ale, hopefully we'll wind up with a crisp amber ale, especially when I thin it out by adding some sugar. I'm planning on using culinary sage instead of hops here, just as I did in batch 098. Hopefully, this will be a light, refreshing ale for this summer.

BeerXML for this recipe, generated by BrewTarget.

I'm calling this batch Sage Amber Ale until a better name becomes apparent.

Ingredients

  • 5.40 lb. Maris Otter pale malt
  • 0.09 lb. black malt
  • 0.21 lb. crystal Malt 120°L
  • 3.20 lb. light brown sugar
  • 1.50 lb. white cane sugar
  • 1 packet Safale S-05, rehydrated in ½ c. tap water at 102℉.
  • 1 oz. powdered dry-rubbed Albanian sage from Penzeys Spices, added to bucket in hop sock on 25 February 2020.
  • Added at bottling (31 March 2020):
    • ⅔ cup GW brand light brown sugar, dissolved in approx. 1 cup microwave-boiled beer
    • 1 packet Lalvin 71B, rehydrated in ½ c. tap water at 98℉

As always with second-runnings ales, the figures in the grain bill are estimated as if figures to use as a sarting point if I want to re-brew this with a fresh grain batch. (This is also true in the beerXML, of course.)

Procedure

Sparged 3½ gallons or so of additional wort from batch 189. Boiled sixty minutes on the stove, not starting timer until after the hot break. Wound up with about 2½ gallons of wort, post-boil, with gravity of 1.029. (I am not getting good extraction from this batch of grain.) Chilled and poured into 1 gallon cold tap water; boiled tap water plus sugars for ten minutes before putting it into the bucket, thereby adding approx. 1.75 gallons of volume to make about 5.5 gallons of wort.

Brew day: 19 January 2020
Predicted original gravity: 1.0747
Measured original gravity: 1.046
Estimated IBUs: 0.0
Predicted final gravity 1.0187
Predicted ABV: 7.3
Bottling day : 22 March 2020
Final gravity: 1.000
Estimated ABV: 6%

Yield: TBD; hopefully, somehwere around five gallons.

  • 22 x 12 oz. beer bottles
  • 10 x 500mL beer bottles
  • 10 x 22 oz. beer bottles
  • approx. 4 oz. hydrometer tube waste

Total yield: 657 fl. oz., or just a little over five gallons.

Observations

  • 2020-01-20T15:09: There's carbon dioxide discharge from the airlock.
  • 2020-02-25: Added more sage in a hop sock.
  • 2020-03-22: Racked into new sanitized bucket, adding priming sugar and a wine yeast, then bottled.