Canadienne Bière Brassée dans le Garage

Hey look! The sawhorses are out and there are plumes of smoke streaming from the smoker. Chris must have a day off or something. Canadienne Bière Brassée dans le Garage was brewed up today, a hunk of turkey breast was smothered in barbecue sauce and smoked, and two chicken breasts were smoked for addition in a new soup. More on the soup in the following post. But for now, the beer session...

Literally, via iGoogle's translation tool, the beer means "Canadian beer brewed in the garage". Novel. A trip to Triad Homebrew Supply yielded a perusal of the pre-packaged kits they have. One, "Canadian Ale" caught my eye for whatever reason so it came home with me. Brewed in the vein of "eastern Canada and Quebec" style. None of this Saskatchewan crap here! BJCP lists commercially available styles as Labatt Canadian Ale and, one of the muses (besides Canadian prog-rock band Rush on the iPod) for today's brew session, Molson Golden:
Yes, I will in fact occasionally drink a yellow mass-produced beer.

The recipe:

(no steeping grains this time!)

3.3 lb Light Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
5 lb Extra Light Dry Malt Extract (DME)

1 oz Willamette hops, 5.8% alpha acid at 60 minutes
1 oz Willamette hops, 5.8% AA at 5 minutes

1 Whirlfloc tablet at 15 minutes to clarify

WLP001 California Ale yeast

The kit only came with 2 lb of DME, but me, not one to sit idly by when there's recipe tinkering to be done, added an extra 3 lb bag of DME.

Done. Easy. And quick. No waiting for the water temp to hit 150-156 degrees to steep grains for 20 minutes, then re-heating to boiling. Add water, begin heating, add LME and DME, then hit boiling in one fell swoop.

The yeast starter in the growler took off this time for whatever reason. Past photos here show a layer of yeast settling to the bottom and then it froths up when shaken. This time? Huge ass frothing. Observe. One good shake before work, then 8 hours later I come home to this:

That's 8 hours+ of sitting. No shaking. Email correspondence with Ken at Triad Homebrew (including photos) settled my mind when he told me that everything looks good. Whew...

So now it sits in the Fermentation Center, ahem, the downstairs bath, beside the freshly dry-hopped Centennial Madness.

And did I mention I smoked some meat too (non-sexually)?

Mmmmm....fire.....