Grocery Eats

Yesterday was pretty much awesome.  I ordered an old Charlie Papazian book, “Home Brewer’s Gold” from some biscuit and book store (?) in Georgia and it finally arrived.

You may be asking yourself,  ”why is this so awesome?”.  For starters it has the fucking recipe for Olde English “800″.

I have been on the lookout for a good malt liquor recipe for a while now.  My searching started off with St. Ides and then went to Colt .45 but nothing turned up.  Rumors that a recipe for OE was included in this book were flying around a few beer nerd message boards.  I opened up the book like a kid on Christmas day, went right to the table of contents and quickly flipped to the Gold Award winning entry for American Malt Liquor…

My eyes widened as I quickly made my way through the recipe.  I whispered “yesssssssssss” to myself knowing that I have access to all of the ingredients and equipment required to brew this masterpiece.

So the homies and I are going to cook some of this shit up in the next few weeks.  In the meanwhile, check out some of the absolutely amazing reviews of OE at beeradvocate.com while I try to find a way to put this crap in old 40 oz bottles.  I need to find some 40’s that don’t have the twist-off caps and that would have required a bottle opener but I have a feeling they don’t exist.

EDIT: Here’s the all-grain recipe taken from the book for those wanting to try it out on their own:

Olde English 800
5 Gallons

OG: 1.055 (13.5)
FG: 1.004 (1)
ABV: 7%
Color: 4.5 SRM
Bittering Units: 14

3.5 lbs. American 2-row pale malt
3.75 lbs. American 6-row malt
3 lbs. flaked corn
2 HBU (56 MBU) American Cluster hops (pellets) - 105 minutes (bittering)
1.5 HBU (43 MBU) American Nugget hops (pellets) - 105 minutes (bittering)
1/4 tsp. Irish moss
Wyeast 2007 Pilsen Lager yeast

A step infusion mash is employed to mash the grains.  Add 10 quarts (9.5L) of 130-degree F (54.5 C) water to the crushed grain and flaked corn, stir, stabilize and hold the temperature at 122 degrees F (50 C) for 30 minutes.  Add 5 quarts (1.9 L) of boiling water.  Add heat to bring temperature up to 150 degrees F (65.5 C).  Hold for about 60 minutes.

After conversion, raise temperature to 167 degrees F (75 C) water, lauter and sparge with 4 gallons (15 L) of 170 degree F (77 C) water.  Collect about 6.5 gallons (25 L) of of runoff, add bittering hops and bring to a full and vigorous boil.

The total boil time will be 105 minutes.  When 10 minutes remain, add Irish moss.  After total wort boil of 105 minutes (reducing wort volume to just over 5 gallons), turn off the heat, then separate or strain out and sparge hops.  Chill the wort to 65 degrees F (18 C) and direct into a sanitized fermenter.  Aerate the cooled wort well.  Add an active yeast culture and ferment for 4 to 6 days in the primary at 55 degrees F (15 C). Then transfer into a secondary fermenter, chill to 50 degrees F (10 C) to age for two more weeks, then lager for two to four more weeks at 40 degrees F (4.5 C).

When secondary aging is complete, prime with sugar, bottle or keg.  Let condition at temperatures above 60 degrees F (15.5 C) until clear and carbonated, then store chilled.