The plan was simple. I wanted to make Megalodon. I made this kit as an extract and really liked it, but I wanted to revisit it as an all-grain brew. I didn’t by the kit because I don’t have the fire power for a 5-gallon brew. The plan was to cut the recipe in half, and make a 2.5 gallon batch. Easy enough right?
First issue, Centennial hops were out of stock, so I subbed Falconer’s 7Cs. I still stand by that sub.
The first real error was that I am still dialing in on AG brewing, I mis-read the BeerSmith numbers and oversparged, by a lot. instead of 2.5 gallons at 1.090 I ended up with 3 gallons at 1.076. Oh well, live and learn, right? it’ll still be a biggish beer. It might not be a “Megalodon” but I’ll take a mini-megalodon; keep moving forward.
I was also working on a winter warmer. My plan there was to throw some mulling spices into a secondary, and rack the beer onto the spices. As we were racking the winter warmer to secondary, I had this sinking feeling as I realized… I grabbed the wrong fermenter and was racking the “mini-megalodon” on to the spices. So now I had a christmas-spice, mini-megalodon. No going back.
I decided to taste it today; after 2-1/2 weeks in the bottles, the carbonation still has a little way to go, (my house is lower-60s.) The clove is most prevalent, followed by some cinnamon, and hop bitterness more than hop aroma. FG was 1.014, which leaves me a touch above 8% ABV
At this point I’m thinking If I can have the patience to let this age until the clove mellows out, some of that raisin and fig I remember from my first megalodon could start to come through. This could be the one of my favorite beers.
