Ingredients for 5 gallons of ale

  1. 5 gallons of water
  2. 4 lbs Amber Malt
  3. 1 oz. Spaten hops
  4. 1 oz _____ hops
  5. 1 oz snowdale's fresh cascade hops
  6. 1 handful of blueberries
  7. 4 oz maple syrup
  8. Munich malt Barley grains
  9. 1.5 cups ground hemp-seed
  10. 1 tablespoon Irish Moss
  11. 1 packet ale yeast
    12. picture of fresh grown hops on the bine

Beer can be made right in the kitchen if you have patience, a stove, a pot big enough to boil 3 or 4 gallons of water, an airtight bucket with a one way valve to let gasses escape, a thermometer, a hydrometer to calculate alcohol content, and the above ingredients. Being sanitary is the only rule, since that is how beer spoils. Be sure to wash your hands and utensils before touching anything

The essential ingredients of beer are water, yeast, hops, malt, and grains. In Hoppty Dumpty breakfast beer, there are separate flavors added to try to make the beer taste like blueberry pancakes. Hemp seed is added with the grains for extra flavor . The seed can be ground up in a coffee grinder.

All beer starts out with simple water. 3 or 4 gallons are heated up to around 150-170 F to steep the grains. Use a cheesecloth bag to hold the grains and hemp-seed, and steep for about 30 minutes.

Remove the grain-bag without squeezing it, and discard it. Bring it to a boil and add the bittering hops. Place the hops in a cheesecloth bag if you want to minimize sediment, or just toss them right in with the wort (un-yeasted beer).

After 45 minutes of boiling, take the kettle off the burner. Now is the time to add the malt syrup. Stir up good so that it is all dissolved. Place back on burner and add the irish moss. This helps make the proteins that are made coagulate and sink to the bottom. Once it starts boiling again add the aroma hops and boil for 15 more minutes.

After the boil is a critical point in the process. Trying to cool the wort from boiling to 70 degrees (yeast pitching temperature) as fast as you can is what is to be done. A good idea is to chill the remaining water in the freezer, and then add it once the boil is over. Ice cubes are good too. If there is snow on the ground, fill the sink with it and put the kettle in the snow. The faster it is cooled, the faster the fresh wort will become beer, and the better the beer will be.

Once 70 degrees is met, take a hydrometer reading and record the original gravity. Then remove it, and take a wire wisk or a fork, or anything that will make bubbles in the wert if you swish it around. The goal is to oxidize the wort so that the yeast will begin to ferment as fast as possible.

Sprinkle the yeast over the foamy wort, and then add the handful of blueberries, and cover with an airtight top. Place a one way valve on the top so that the fermentation gasses will escape.

Let the ale sit in a room with a constant temperature 0f 70 degrees, or as close as it can get for two weeks.

Transfer the beer from the primary fermenter to the glass carboy using a siphon. Then boil up the maple syrup and add to the beer. Let it sit for a week or so, until it stops bubbling.

Boil up dextrose in water and add it to the bottling bucket. Bottle the beer and wait another two weeks for them to be fully carbonated.

Have a beer party!

© HemptyDumpty.com September 2008