Brewing All Weekend

I'm a bit tired from a busy weekend...a great deal of which was consumed by brewing. Friday night saw the racking of the Tongue Splitter (highly hopped American Pale Ale) into secondary, and then I brewed a "Magnum PA"...a Double IPA of high gravity and hoppage. It uses two ounces of Yakima Magnum hops, one ounce of Liberty, two ounces of Northern Brewer hops, and another ounce of Cascade for dry hopping in secondary. I added half the malt extract to bring the wort into the 1.040 range for the first 40 minutes of the boil, to encourage more extraction of hop bitterness. I kept the reserved extract to be added late in the boil. The original gravity was 1.082...big, but not too big. I pitched it onto the Tongue Splitter yeast cake, and affixed a fermentation lock....

Which turned out to be a comically big mistake. For the first time I actually needed a blowoff tube, and I ended up with slimy worty blowoff goo all over my basement floor the next morning. I cleaned it all up and affixed a blowoff tube. It's been fermenting vigorously ever since. That done, I headed on over to my local homebrew store to pick up some ingredients for a recipe I'd pieced together in my head...a Honey Kölsch. Kölsch is a type of beer from Cologne, Germany, and it is notable because it is probably the lightest ale you will ever run across...you could call it a top-fermenting pilsner. Light straw-gold with a delicate flavour of malt and noble German hops (in my case, imported Hallertauer), I'm actually doing this one as a Christmas gift for a family member / inlaw who is fond of domestic lager. I'll approximate my recipe:

1 lb white wheat malt, cracked and steeped at 150 degrees for 25 minutes
3.3 lb Briess Pilsen Light liquid malt extract
1 lb Muntons Extra Light dry malt extract
1 lb Muntons Wheat dry malt extract
1 lb local clover honey (added at beginning of boil)
1 lb local clover honey (added at flameout, to retain aroma)
1.5 oz Hallertauer hops (60 min boil, bittering)
0.5 oz Hallertauer hops (10 min boil, flavour/aroma)
White Labs WLP029 German Ale / Kölsch yeast

Original gravity came in too high due to boil off, in the upper 60s, so I added some water to bring it back down to the target OG of 1.057. It started bubbling in a little over 12 hours, which isn't too bad without a starter. This one will take some cold-conditioning to clear it. I'm hoping to have a mild, subtle, and tasty brew that BMC drinkers would find appealing, but that I would not be bored with if I end up with it anyway.

I sampled the cider, by the way...a lot has fermented out, it is at 1.007, and is still going down I think. It has a mild "fruit punch" flavour to it, and is not short on alcohol. I may carbonate it, and forget the whole corking thing with this one. The problem with cider is that attenuation is so complete, if you aren't careful you are left with what tastes like alcohol, water, and a hint of juice. I think I've added enough unfermentables to this to avoid that, and the yeast itself is known for retaining a fruity profile.