Mardi Gras Beer

This beer made for Carol and Pat's Mardi Gras party.
George and I put the recipe together with the idea
that we were going to use up some of out older grains.
Its kind of got the grain bill of an Octoberfest beer,
but it will be fermented with Ale yeasts.

Brewer:	John Tossberg and George Aux		Email:	lagerlover69@yahoo.com
Beer:	Mardi Gras Beer		Style:	American Amber Ale
Type:	All grain		Size:	12 gallons
Color:	15 HCU (~9 SRM)		Bitterness:	24 IBU
OG:	1.050		FG:	1.014
Alcohol:	4.6% v/v (3.6% w/w)
Water:	1 tbls CaCa2 1 Tbls gypsum for 30 gal.
Grain:	8.25 lb. German Vienna 8.25 lb. German Munich .5 lb. Cara Munich I .5 lb. Cara Munich II .5 lb. Cara amber 1 oz. Black patent
Mash:	90% efficiency
	Strike water was not hot enough when we wanted to start brewing. turned on the imersion heater at 7:30 am. The weather was a bit cold and I think that this slowed down heating. Boiled up aprox. 5 gal. and doughed in. Temp stablized aprox. 60 C. rest 30 min. Add more almost boiling water, aprox. 2 gal. Temp stablized at aprox. 66 C. Pull first decotion aprox > 1/3 mash. Boil 7 minutes add back to mash. Temp stabilized at 75 C. Start sparge. ] Sparge was stuck. It took three hours to sparge beer. The grain mill needs to be re-adjusted. After we were able to get 6 gal. the mash started flowing better. Perhaps getting rid of the heaviest runnings helped open up the sparge.
Boil:	60 minutes	SG 1.046	13 gallons
	Spaced out an irish moss addition.
Hops:	4 oz. Mt. Hood (3.6% AA, 60 min.) 2 oz. Ultra (2.1% AA, .5 min.)
Yeast:	Each carboy got aprox 45 sec. shot of pure oxygen. Aprox. 500 ml Wyeast London III Aprox. 750 ml Wyeast American Ale 1056
Log:	Brewing 2/2/03 The finished wort is darker than what the program indicates, due to the decotion and the long mash.

Recipe posted 02/03/03.