California Common 2011

grain
- 20 pounds Briess 2 Row Brewer's Malt
- 2 pounds Briess Caramel 60
- 2 pounds Briess Carapils

hop
- 1 ounce Northern Brewer whole hops 60 minutes
- 2 ounces Northern Brewer whole hops 30 minutes
- 2 ounces Northern Brewer whole hops 20 minutes

yeast: Wyeast California Lager

comments:
Plentiful hops in this thick, caramelly rendition of an old school west coast lager.

batch size: 10 gallons

ambient outdoor temperature: 23 degrees Fahrenheit
ambient basement temperature: 60 degrees Fahrenheit

notes:
- 2 ounces of Northern Brewer hops.  Some are a little brown.  I do not know why.  They taste good.

- Wheel barrow after adding the spent grains to the compost.  I thought this looked wintery.  It was cold this day but still no snow.

- This was right after a boil-over.  I may never learn not to turn my back on the boil.

- Wheat wine to warm me up.

- Transfering the first 5 gallons to the fermenter.

- One day later the fermentation is going well.  It was slow to start ... about 16 hours.  Once it started it went from nothing to krausen in a flash.  Note the blow off hoses in the foreground.  I do not think I will need them for this batch but the added security is worth it.  Plus it might be less work than using an airlock.