A little over two weeks ago I brewed a 2 1/2 gallon batch of brown ale with my brother-in-law. It fermented quickly and looked great so tonight I took a gravity reading.

Success!

If you can’t see that clearly enough, it reads 1.010. That may not mean much to you, but it was the final gravity I was shooting for. Which means two things-(a) the beer fermented just like I wanted and (b) it’s ready to bottle. And bottle it I did.

A bucket of beer…mmmmm

I got 26 bottles out of this batch. Just over a case. But the best part was when I tasted the gravity sample. It was awesome. Smooth and rich with just the right hop balance. It’ll be better after a few weeks of conditioning in the bottle but I think I really like this one already. For those interested, here’s the recipe:

Brown Ale
2 1/2 gallons

5 lbs. Marris Otter (English 2-row barley)
2.5 oz. British crystal malt (50-60L)
2 oz. Caravienne (it’s a Belgian crystal malt)
3 oz. Chocolate malt (Not the Ovaltine stuff. It’s a kind of malted barley.)
1/2 oz. Magnum @ 60 minutes
1/2 oz. Fuggles @ 5 minutes
White Labs California Ale yeast

The weird use of British and Belgian crystals was only because that’s what I had on hand. It was the last of my crystal malts and I just happened to have those amounts of each one. Also, the yeast was from the slurry of a pale ale that I had bottled the week before brew day.

Isn’t that beautiful?

That’s the pale ale. It came out a little too sweet because my thermometer was off by almost ten degrees. I cannot stress this enough people – CALIBRATE YOUR THERMOMETERS! Put them in a bot of boiling water and a pot of ice water and make sure the temperatures are correct (212F and 32F at sea level, respectively). There’s no reason to believe your thermometer isn’t lying to you. So I went out and bought a new one and checked it in hot and cold water before using it. It was spot on. Which is why the brown ale was spot on. Which is why I am a very happy person right now.