Rye Amber Ale

 So I've been slacking a bit on getting this in the blog.  Last Saturday, I turned the ingredients seen on the left into beer.  It;s going to be very similar to my usual Amber Ale that I make, except, I added a pound of rye to the grain bill.  The rye will add some spicey undertones to the beer.  It's also well hoped, and I used Wyeast Northwest Ale yeast to finish it off.

This brew was a partial mash, over 4 pounds of grain, mixed with 3 pounds of light dry malt extract (DME,) I also had a pound of corn sugar laying around from when I used to bottle, so I added that to the boil as well.  That will add an extra percent of alcohol to the finished product as well as allow the yeast to fully attenuate, meaning it should have a crisp, dry finish.

After 3 days the fermentation was starting to slow down.  I figured this would be the ideal time to add some more flavor to the party.  A few years back, I wrote to the good people at Templeton Rye Whiskey, in Templeton, IA.  I told them I was a homebrewer, and wanted to do a wood aged beer using their oak.  The quickly shipped out a board from one of their used whiskey barrels, and I try to use it sparingly for one brew a year.  I always use two 6 inch long pieces at once.  Before adding it to the fermenter, I bake them in the over for a half an hour.  This kills any microscopic critters that can add some interesting flavors to the beer.  I'll let this sit for at least two weeks before kegging.  I guess that means I need to finish the last of my Weizenbock to make room for this.  So once again, thank you to the people at Templeton Rye for making such an awesome product, but for being generous enough to share your barrels.  If you haven't checked them out yet, you really need to.  http://www.templetonrye.com/