Born To Be Mild

If you have never tried a Northern English Mild, you are missing out on a great full flavored session beer that is both an inexpensive beer to brew and is a quick beer to go from grain to glass; it can be ready to drink in a couple weeks if you push it. With an ABV of approximately 3.6% and chock full of antioxidants found in darker beers, your liver will love it too! I'm actually brewing this beer as a starter for a nut brown ale I'm brewing for the holidays.
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Yeast Starter: nope
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: nope, this is a starter
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Grist:
5 lb 8 oz Maris Otter (Crisp, UK)
1 lb 8 oz Crystal 60L (Crisp, UK)
6 oz Chocolate malt (Crisp, UK)
Additions:
1.25 oz UK Fuggle 4.0% at 45 minutes (1oz 4.3%)
1.25 oz UK Fuggle 4.0% at 15 minutes

Mash at 156 degrees for 60 minutes at 1.25qt/lb water to grain ratio(2.50 gallons), mashout with 2gallons of 185 degree water and Vorlauf until first runnings are clear. Batch sparge with 3.25 gallons 170 degree water to get to pre-boil volume.

Pitch yeast at the starting fermentation temp of 65 degrees and ramp up to 68 degrees after 3 days at initial fermentation temp.

Uggh..not sure what happened here, maybe the small grist, but I lost a lot of temp in the mash in and only settled at 151 degrees. This is way off and will produce a much less malty beer that i was hoping for. i have two choices here, i could add a little lactose to sweeten up the wort (but it'll raise gravity) or i can try to heat a plastic cooler on the stove. I'm choosing option #2. 4oz.
mashed in at 8:30am, mashed out at 9:30 with 1.75 gallons 189 degree water, bringing the temp up to around 157, left it there for 15 minutes to see if I could correct the mash temp inefficiency a bit. Sparged at 10:00am. draind 2nd runnings into kettle at 10:15 am
hotbreak 10:45
first hop addition 11:00
second hop addition 11:30
cool down 11:45
pitch yeast at 72 degrees, drop to 65 and hold for 3 days
OG 1.039

Rye Ask Rye IPA

Shooting for a tasty, yet big beer at 7.2% abv. The flaked barley should give it incredible head retention and a cascading effect like a nitrogen pour. I'm not an IPA guy, but I can't ignore the sytle. I'm going to brew two this fall, the first attempt below is a lot less complicated based on the fact that there is no dry-hopping involved..rare by today's IPA standars, but we'll see how it turns out.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Safale-05
Yeast Starter: Cake from Yukon Gold
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Target Original Gravity: 1.064
Target Final Gravity: 1.010
IBU: 67
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90
Primary Fermentation: 21 days at 62-65 degrees
Additional Fermentation: Crash cool to 39 degrees for 7 days then bottle
Grist:
10 lb 2-row Pilsner Malt
2 lbs Rye Malt
2 lbs Vienna Malt
12 oz. Crystal 60L
8 oz. Flaked Barley
4 oz rice hulls

Boil Additions:
1 oz. Tettnanger FWH 4.4% (First Wort Hopped)
1 oz. Chinook 60 min 12%
0.5 oz. Chinook 30 min 12%
0.5 oz. Chinook 5 min 12%

Mashed in at 154 degrees for 70 minutes. Ran off 7.2 gallons and boiled for 90 minutes.
15.25lb x 1.50qt/lb = 22.88/4qt per gallon = 5.72 gallons mash in
anticipate 2.25 gallons lost in mash
uggh...actual OG 1.076, this was a BIG beer, sparged 7.2 gallons into kettle, should have added the additional 1/2 gallon that I left behind, but 7 gallons is usually enough for a 90 minute boil........only drained 5 gallons into the kettle instead of 5.50, which accounts for the high gravity. I'm going to add some distilled water to the fermentor as an experiment to see it i can drop the OG and mellow it out a bit...I really want to ferment 5.5. gallons here to lower the OG a bit. Great efficiency nonetheless.
New OG = 1.068