Beer From Home Malted Barley

Tadaaa!! Beer brewed from home malted barley.

It was a fun and educational ride and the ultimate pay off is a pretty good pale ale. The following is the recipe which includes a significant amount of cane sugar to get the gravity up but it didn't hamper the delicious (if I do say so myself) maltiness of the barley.
There is also a nice citrus flavor provided by the cascade and centennial hops and a crisp mouthfeel from the dry final gravity and moderate to high carbonation level. I poured samples for friends this evening and got a mix of responses from
"that's pretty good" to "sure I'll have another" . O.K. not outstanding testimonies but at least they didn't spit it out.

What's interesting to me is how much the flavor stands out in this beer after drinking the light lagers of Mexico. It's a welcome change.

Here is the ingredients and process I used for brewing. Do you batch sparge? This was the first time I did this as I normally fly sparge, I hope I did it right. If there is a better method let me know for future attempts at this.

1. Mashed 9.4 lbs. home made barley in 2.5 gals. h2o at 150f. for 90 minutes then (batch sparge)
2. drain entire content of mash tun then
3. added 2.5 gals. of h2o at 170f. and drained and again
4. added 2.5 gals. of h2o at 170f. and drained
5. brought 6 gals. wort of 1.028 (5 gals = 1.033) to a boil with .5 lbs. cry #60 and 1 lb. cara red steeping grains
6. added 2 lbs. cane sugar (Mark C. if your reading this - still no cider flavors from the sugar addition)
7. boiled for 60 mins. with .5 oz. Simcoe hops
8. boiled for 15 mins. with 1. oz. Cascade hops (irish moss)
9. boiled for 2 mins. with 1. oz. Centennial hops
10. Chilled in ice bath
11. fermented at 65f. using US-05 dry ale yeast for 7 days
12. bottled and conditioned for 2 weeks

Efficiency: 50%
Attenuation: 85%
ABV 6.18%
IBU's 40
O.G. 1.055
F.G. 1.008

Any questions about this recipe? Leave a comment.