F*CK It's Cold

Origin:
It's getting cold out as winter approaches and I decided its time to brew a "winter warmer." I decided I would try to replicate my favorite warmer Widmer Brothers Brrr. This Brrr Clone should be quite the treat. I decided to leave out the onomatopoeia and just explain to the drinker, F*CK It's Cold.

Ingredients:

• 11 lbs Light/Pale Malt Extract
• 2.0 oz. Simcoe (12.7% alpha-acid, whole leaf)
• 2.0 oz. Cascade (8.6% alpha-acid, whole leaf)
• 1.5 oz. Nugget (12-14% alpha-acid, whole leaf, home grown)
• White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)
• 1 3/4 lb. Crystal Malt (10°L, Crushed)
• 1/4 lb. Crystal Malt (80°L, Crushed)
• 4 oz. German Melanoidin Malt (30°L, Crushed)
• 3 oz. Chocolate Malt (350°L, Crushed)

Procedure:

On Saturday October 16th I purchased the all my ingredients through Main Street Homebrew Supply Co. and brewed that day. This was a pretty standard brew with steeping the grains, pouring the malt, cooling, and pitching. One thing that I noticed that I have not before is when transferred to the primary from the kettle several distinct layers of sedimentation were created. The picture at the left shows the very distinct layers of sedimentation. This may be due to the Irish Moss because that is a new step in my brewing process and has to do with flocculation.
My friend Nick grew some Nugget Hops in his back yard and this year they finally began to produce some yield. He vary graciously gave me some of his crop and I'm using them for this batch. They are a little tighter packed than the standard Freshops I usually get but they worked out great. Once submerged in the boil they expanded to their full cone shape and did their job nicely. I worked the hops into the recipe and hop schedule shown below.

Hops/Ingredients Schedule:

Quantity	Ingredient	Boiled for
1 oz.	Simcoe	Entire 60 min. Boil
1 1/2 oz.	Nugget	Last 30 min. of boil
1 oz.	Cascade	Last 20 min. of boil
1 oz.	Simcoe	Last 15 min. of boil
1 oz.	Cascade	Last 5 min. of boil

I pitched the yeast, measure the OG, and sealed it up. (In acutality I sealed it up, remembered to check OG and then sealed it up again)
Original Gravity: 1.070

UPDATE:Today, October 29th, 2010 I transferred my F*CK It's Cold to the secondary after fermenting for a little less than 2 weeks. The results I am happy to say, were exceptional! After taking a gravity I began transferring to the secondary carboy to ferment. Near the end of the siphon the carboy was getting a pretty full, since I started with closer to 6 gallons, and I siphoned a couple of cups into a pint glass for sampling. The unfinished beer was in my opinion very close to Widmer Brrr. I am eager to see what the final result will be after secondary fermentation has completed. At around 6% Alcohol I think there is some further fermenting that needs to happen before it is ready to keg. Ill let it sit in the secondary for another week.
Gravity at Transfer: 1.024
Current Alcohol:

• ABW=105*(1.070-1.024)=4.83
• ABV=1.25*4.83=6.04%

UPDATE 2:
Today, November 3, 2010 I kegged the F*ck It's Cold. Remeasuring the gravity to 1.022 i determined that the alchohol content is approximately 6.3%. While transferring I noticed that this beer has an extremely high level of clarity. Possibly the highest clarity beer I have ever produced. I don't know if i should attribute this to the irish moss or some other factor. I took a picture but it really doesn't convey what I am trying to show (shown right). I tried another sample and it tastes even better than it did before at sampling. I will most likely turn this into a seasonal brewing adventure. One note is that I started off with closer to 6 gallons of wort before I pitched because I was tired of the amount of trub that was getting transferred to my beer. This turned out to be too much. I think 5.5 gallons of wort will be enough to allow transfer without bringing any zombie yeast over, and still be enough to fill the carboy up and then consequentially the keg.

FINAL BEER GRAVITY:

• ABW=105*(1.070-1.022)=5.04
• ABV=1.25*5.04=6.30%