I have been brewing only all-grain batches for about the past 3-4 years. This was an extract kit from Northern Brewer that I picked up to try and brew more frequently by brewing extract batches on occasion since it takes less time.

I conducted a full-boil starting with 7 gallons of water, planning to boil off 1 gallon over 60 minutes and get 5.5 gallons into the fermenter. This plan leaves me an extra 0.5 gallon to lose to trub in the bottom of the boil kettle. After adding all the malt extract the volume in the boil kettle was closer to 8 gallons. I knew this meant I now needed to plan for a 90 minute boil to evaporate off that extra volume.

After boiling for 30 minutes I started my hop schedule. Everything went as planned and I ended up with 5.5 gallons of 1.058 SG wort in the fermenter. The target OG was 1.062 SG.

I pitched 2 packets of Wyeast 1056. One of them was 3 months old and the other was 2 months old so I figured they should just get used before losing anymore viability.

Ingredients

Specialty Grains

The following was provided pre-mixed and crushed by Northern Brewer:

  • 1 lb Black Malt
  • 0.25 lbs Briess Caramel 80
  • 0.25 lbs Peated Malt

Fermentables

  • 6 lbs Dark malt syrup
  • 2 lbs Dark dry malt extract

Hops

  • 2 oz Cluster (60 min)
  • 1 oz Willamette (40 min)
  • 1 oz Willamette (15 min)

Yeast

  • Wyeast 1056 American Ale I