Gang of Four (Minus One) Cream Ale

Mashing Instructions:
Mashed in all ingredients except the grits and the six row at 130F and let stand in the mash tun while doing a cereal mash with the grits and six row. Used only Glendale's finest carbon filtered tap water approximately 4.5 gallons.

Cereal mash: in a seperate 5 gallon pot, bring approximately 8 quarts of water to a boil and SLOWLY stir in the grits, a bit at a time. Keep stirring for the entire cereal mash or the damn grits will scorch onto the bottom of the pot. Bring the grits-lava to a boil, keep stirring, adding water as needed to keep the mess from becoming concrete. Boil for 10 minutes. Cut the flame. Reduce mixture to 150F. I added about 3 quarts of mash water from the main mash to drop the temperature. Then stir in the crushed six row barley. The mixture slackens immediately. Cover and rest 15 minutes. Our rest temp was about 145F. After the rest, added another 2 quarts of mash water, then lit the burner again. Stir continuously to prevent scorching, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, cut the flame and carry the pot to the mash tun and dumped the contents into the main mash and stirred to equalize temperature. Added a bit of tap water to adjust the mash temp to 156. Rest 60 minutes at 156, then turn on the HERMS and recirculate to 168F. Rest another 15 minutes, then added as much 170F water as would fit into the 10 gallon mash tun and began run off into the boil kettle. Added a bit more water as the level dropped and collected about 11 gallons in the boil kettle. The first runnings were 20.6 plato.

Yeast:
Two packages of US-05 dry ale yeast. I made a starter the day before, using 1600 ml of water and 2/3 cup of DME. Stirred the starter on my stir plate for 24+ hours, until it was time to pitch the yeast.

Special Instructions / Notes:
Oxygenated 60 seconds using actual canned oxygen and an air stone on the end of a wand.

Fermenting in my beer fridge in the garage, set at 62F. Vigorous fermentation observed the next morning. Looks to be almost finished after 6 days. I'll rack to secondary in another two days and crash the secondary in my chest freezer at 39F. A week, maybe two and then I'll rack to a serving keg and force carbonate.