Voter Brown Ale

                    James Perkins 10/30/2000
                Feedback? Write james@loowit.net

As this recipe is prepared, it's election season in the presidential
'swing' state of Oregon.  I encourage everyone to drink a bottle of
homebrew and vote their conscience (in Oregon, with vote-by-mail, we
can vote in our own living room, while reading the tome of 26 measures
and seperate tome of candidates and local measures).

      7 lb. Amber Malt Extract

      8 oz. Crystal Malt 60L
      8 oz. Chocolate Malt 350L
      4 oz. Special B Malt 250L

      3 gal. distilled water for boiling grains
      3 gal. distilled water to sparge/top up.

      2 oz. Willamette Hops (bittering)
    0.5 oz. Columbus Hops (dry hopping)

      8 oz. corn sugar (bottling)

        WyEast 1098 British Ale pitchable yeast

Place the crushed, malted grains in a teflon bag and place in 3 gal.
room-temperature distilled water. Bring up to 190F.  Leave the lid off
during this heating. Remove the grain bag, squeeze the grain bag into
the water (I two large stainless steel mixing bowls and trap the grain
bag between them like so -- )o) -- where ")" is a bowl and "o" is the
grain bag.

Bring to full rolling bowl. beware of it foaming over... if it looks like
it is going to do so, remove from heat until it subsides, then put it
back.  I didn't have this much foam.

Add all the malt extract syrup, stirring to keep it from sticking and
burning on the bottom.  Return to full boil, watching carefully for it
possibly foaming up.  Add 1 oz. of the Willamette hops and set your timer
for 60 min.  I stir 'em in at this point until they are totally soggy.
With 30 min. left add 0.5 oz Willamette hops, and at 15 min. add the
rest of the Willamette hops.

I left the lid on during the boil. Still seems to boil off about one of
the 3 gallons.

When the buzzer goes off, pour 1/2 gal. cold water in the bottom of the
primary fermenter, then hold a (sanitized) large kitchen strainer over
the fermenter and scoop pintfuls of hops and wort into the strainer.
When the strainer's nearly overfull I smush the hops to drain the
extract, and pour a cup or two of cold water through it to sparge, then
plop the hops into a container to later throw into my garden compost.
Repeat until done (about 2 strainers-ful of hops for me) (I still need
to get a brewer's strainer to hold ALL the hops).

Top up the primary fermenter to 5 gal. liquid. Cover securely and let it
sit overnight.  Measure the temperature. When it gets down around 75F,
measure the specific gravity (I have 1.052).  Give the water a really
vigorous stir (to mix oxygen in to the water), then pitch the ale yeast
in over the surface of the wort. Keep covered, place in a 75F room and
wait for fermentation to get really going (took about 24 hours for me).

11/8/2000 (day 8) place Columbus hops in a small cloth baggy, and place
into the mix.  This is called dry hopping. This should add a hop aroma to
the beer.

11/12/2000 (day 12) add corn sugar, bottle the beer.