Cooking with homebrew

On Wednesday I was craving brats. I rarely make brats since the kids don't really eat them. I was off work and only had the youngest child with me so I decided I would make myself some brats and something else for the child. I also decided that soaking those brats in my Firecracker Cream Ale seemed like a great idea. So I put them in a container and poured the Jalapeno infused ale over the top. I let them soak in the fridge for about an hour and then I grilled them. I also grilled some green peppers and onions. The buns I used were the Kings Hawaiian hot dog buns and the square shape made for perfect toasting on the grill.

My Firecracker cream ale is over half gone and I still have lots of people I have promised bottles to. This batch turned out really good.

Recently I got the Sam Adams Hop-tology mix pack and found the beer to be pretty good. One beer that I liked that surprised me was the Tasman red IPA. I'm not a huge fan of the red ale style but this style hopped up I really liked. I had the crazy idea to make a red ale and hop it up and also add some ginger to it. I don't know if it will work but I think I'm gonna try it.

So we are finally moved and settled in to the new house. I decided a while ago my first brew would be a cream ale to test the temperature control of the basement. I did an easy extract kit from Northern Brewer. I did no gravity readings and used dry yeast to keep everything as simple as possible. I even carbed the beer with the 5 oz pack of corn sugar they sent with the kit.

It was in the primary for about 2 and half weeks. I added 12 Jalapenos to the carboy about 4 days before I bottled. To add the Jalapenos I removed the seeds and the membrane and then chopped them into about 1 inch sections. I soaked them in star san to be safe. I think I got some kind of infection from adding cocao nibs to a batch with no kind of sanitation.

The beer was around 66-68 degrees at the height of fermentation, then when things settled down the temp was around 62-64 degrees. My basement stays at 63 degrees. The hardest part of this brew was getting 12 chopped up jalapenos in a grain bag down the neck of a carboy.

I have actually already cheated and tested a bottle on Monday which was 5 days after I bottled it and besides the obvious lack of carbonation it tasted really good. Due to the low fermenting temperature this one won't need long to condition.

Here is the recipe.


Amt Name Type # %/IBU
12.0 oz Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 1 10.7 %
4.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 2 3.6 %
6 lbs Pilsner Liquid Extract (3.5 SRM) Extract 3 85.7 %
1.00 oz Cluster [7.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 18.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 5 -
12.00 Items Jalapeno (Secondary 4.0 days) Flavor 6 -