Starting Specific Gravity: 1.047 Final Specific Gravity: 1.015 Alcohol by vol 5% If your recipe contains Munich or Crystal Malt, place the cracked or ground grain in a kitchen pan, cover with water, heat to approximately 70ºC (66 C), cover & let stand (either on the stove top or in the oven) 45 minutes to 1 hour before you're actually ready to start to work. Place a colander over your boiling kettle (pot) & pour in the grain, letting the water collect in the pot below. Rinse through the grain with hot water, at least 50ºC (54 C) but no hotter than 80ºC (77 C) until a clear runoff is obtained. Discard the grain. The liquid becomes part of the boil. Thoroughly dissolve the following; Dry Malt, any sugar EXCEPT the priming sugar (used for bottling), Dextrin Powder, Gypsum and Salt in two or more gallons of water (as much as possible). Heat to a rolling boil. Stir in the Bittering Hops along with the Chocolate Malt and boil 30 minutes more, adding Aromatic Hops during the last two minutes. (If you are using hop pellets, you may 'dry hop', adding the pellets to the fermenter just proir to fermentation instead of putting them in the boiling kettle.) At the end of the boil, the wort should be cooled as quickly as possible to a temperature between 70 and 30ºC (21-27 C), so the yeast can be added.(If you wish measure starting specific gravity) Fermentation: Siphon your cooled wort into one or more sanitized glass jugs (or fermentors), filling no more than two third full. (Anne's note the total amount of liquid should be 5 American gallons.) Add the yeast, attach a airlock to each container and allow fermentation to proceed. In 5 to 7 days, when apparent yeast activity has ceased and it taste like dry, flat beer, you are ready to bottle. Siphon beer carefully into secondary container, do not disturb sediment. (Anne's note: if this is done TWICE, the second time a day or so later, there will be almost no sediment in the beer.) Boil priming sugar and stir in carefully. Siphon primed beer into clean bottles and cap (allow some headspace.) Check ales after week or two. (We've found that they are most drinkable after 3 weeks.) MAKES: 5 US gallons