We have moved our operations to the basement again for the winter. And

decided to brew our Crop Circles ale.

This is our 5th version of this beer. I make this because the brother

in-law is one of those beer pussy guys who almost throws up if it isnt

Bud Light. But he will drink the entire keg of this in one night.

But to me there is just something about it. I like it, but I dont like

it. There is a taste in here I cant get rid of. And I think its the

rice. Because every other cream ale I tried has this taste some where

in it. Its not a bad taste, just an odd taste.

So we are going back close to the original recipe this time,

6 lbs two row

2 lbs flaked corn

1/2 lb minute rice

1/2 cluster at 60

1/2 crystal at 10

1/2 crystal at 0

05 yeast

Orginally I had used flaked rice, and almost a pound more. That taste was there.

Next I used 2 lbs flaked rice, no corn, and added some Vienna. That

taste still there. I did it this version a few times thinking maybe I

wasnt getting full conversion. But I was.

Somewhere some one said they thought it was the rice taste. And that

maybe it. So as you can see I knocked nearly all the rice out of it

and what is there is minute rice. Bumped up the late edition hops.

Still I went with a 150 mash for 90 min. Smelled just like instant

grits, I coulda thew some pork chops in there and had supper. As I was

about half way thru I thought about a stuck sparge, but my grain bag

over the manifold worked just fine.

I was a bit worried that the huge deadspace in the tun would cause a

decent temp loss, but even over the 90 min I had only lost 1 degree,

and thats with a midway stir. After spending quite a while messing

with Beersmith I got it to where the water amounts and temps are

pretty good, so I hit every number right on.

Going into the fermenter we had .050. After letting settle out for an

hour before going in, I was suprised at how much still settled in the

fermenter.