ESB

Just a quick update on the brewing front. I brewed an Extra Special Bitter several days ago and it is in the fermenter now. It is a simple recipe: 18lbs. of domestic 2-row and 28oz. of Crystal #60. This beer has an original gravity of 1.052 and 42IBU's. The original recipe used Northern Brewer as the bittering hop but because of the hop shortage I had to substitute with Eng. Challenger. I used Kent Goldings for flavor and aroma. Finally, I fermented with White Labs WLP002 English ale yeast at 70f. I'm a little concerned about the ferment because the activity has slowed considerably and the gravity is still 1.020. It this point I guess I will just keep my fingers crossed and hope it drops to 1.010. In the mean time I am trying to get my teaching materials together for the home brewing course I will teach in the fall. As it turns out, there is a lot of paperwork that I need to generate for the students like recipes, brewing proceedure steps, material lists and more. I am also tracking down a source for the beers that I will need to serve for the tasting class.