The Beginning

I am creating this blog in order to write about 2 of my favorite hobbies: biking and brewing. I got into biking Summer of 2006 and began homebrewing in January 2009. I'm sure there will be posts for both on this site, but I will start with brewing.

My first batch of beer that I brewed was a Murphy's Irish Stout clone from Brew Your Own Magazine's "150 Best Clone Recipies" and it turned out very well. Contrary to popular thought, I started with an all grain recipe. If you are not sure about trying it, my advice is to go for it and jump in! I had the help of my buddy Cory Porkkonen who is an experienced brewer, so that made the process a little smoother.

Here is the recipe:
5 pounds 12 ounces 2-row pale ale malt
2 ounces crystal malt
3 ounces chocolate malt
10 ounces roasted barley
12 ounces cane sugar (added @ 15 minutes left of the boil)
8 AAU Target hops (added @ 60 minutes left of boil)
0.25 ounces East Kent Goldings (added @ 15 minutes left of the boil)
White Labs WLP007 yeast
2/3 cup of corn sugar/dextrose for priming

Step by step:
Heat 2.5 gallons of water to 161 F
Mash in pale malt and crystal malt first, then stir in dark grains
Mash at 150 F for 60 minutes
Boil 90 minutes
Ferment at 70 F
Bottle with dextrose

The result:
The beer turned out great and I think I like it even more than the real Murphy's. This clone had more of a bitter taste and more carbonation than the real thing. The carbonation is because Murphy's is actually pushed with a CO2, Nitrogen blend that makes for smaller bubbles and a smoother taste. I love this in Guinness, but I like the bottle conditioned taste of the Murphy's clone. I took some of this to the homebrewing club that I joined, Cloudy Town Brewers, and it went over very well.