Bill and Kathy's Cha Cha Dark Ale(#13)

Ingredients

8 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract

1/2 lb. Crystal Malt

1/4 lb. Chocolate Malt

2 oz. Northern Brewer's Hops

1 oz. Cascade Hops

1 pkg. Windsor Dry Ale Yeast

Algorithm

Put all grains in a grain bag and added to the pot with 1.5 gallons of softened local tap water (Round Rock, TX). Brought grains up to 190F. Steeped grains for fifteen minutes and removed grain bag. Brought resulting wort to a boil and added malt extract and 2 oz Northern Brewer's hops. 43 minutes into the boil, added 1 oz Cascade hops. Total boil time 45 minutes. Cooled wort in ice bath and strained into plastic primary fermenter with 2.5 gallons of chilled spring water. Added tap water to bring the level up to five gallons. Pitched yeast at 73F.

Fermentation

OG 1.048 @ 64F on 9/3/95

IG 1.016 @ 75F on 9/6/95 racked to glass secondary

FG 1.014 @ 75F on 9/19/95 Bottled in brown glass

Results

This brew seemed too intense after a couple of weeks, but I drank most of it anyway. Turns out that a couple of months of maturity yielded an extremely fine brew that featured nice but not too sharp hoppiness with a proper balance of maltiness. Next time, I'll have the patience to wait and enjoy it more. Had the last one of these at the end of February, 96.

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Last updated Oct. 30, 1996