October 15, 2006
It was a beautiful day for brewing this afternoon, probably one of the last before I'm brewing in the snow. I need to put up a canopy and somehow freeze-proof the hose outside before too long.
The good news is that I seem to be stocking up for the winter months, with every carboy and bucket filled with beer. As of tonight, I have both the new Big Sky IPA (I'll get to that in a bit) and Bastogne Tripel #2 in primary, as well as the original Ella, Fair Trade Stout (already on the coffee), and my Champagne Lager in a cold secondary. Also there's a four-gallon batch of hard apple cider in primary in my closet that just finished fermenting on wine yeast. A quick treatment of potassium sorbate (to kill the yeast), some extra sugar for sweetening, and some glycerin for mouthfeel (maybe), as well as a quick degassing (so it's not semi-carbonated in the bottle), I'll throw it in some bottles to drink up immediately. Lastly, Annabelle is in the bottle (too soon, but I had to make space for the Lager's secondary), getting carbonated then being put on ice for a few months (maybe under a snowbank, who knows).
Last week's brewing was spectacular: the Tripel mashed, brewed, and fermented perfectly. A quick secondary and she'll be into the bottles in no time.
Things were similar today, except for the perfectly brewed IPA turned into a whole other monster at the last second. A leak in my immersion chiller hose diluted the five gallons to just over 6 gallons while cooling...whoops. On the bright side, the IPA was of modest gravity and relatively lightly hopped, so the new beer is a typical gravity, moderately to highly-hopped American pale ale, which I had on deck to make in a few batches anyway, so I'm bummed that I won't be getting the beer I was planning on, but thankful that such an ideal brew day wasn't a waste of time and money as well. The good news is that I made all my volumes and measurements spot on (otherwise) and my efficiency was a more than respectable 74%, which means I'm doing everything right (again, otherwise).
Next Sunday is my birthday, and though I'd like to brew a batch on my 21st, I'll just be getting back from Ball State's homecoming with Molly's family and will be hitting the bar and B-Dubs immediately thereafter. So in two weeks time (which is like brewing withdrawal for me) I'll be back at the burner with my Stock Ale, an experiment of 20 pounds of Munich malt, 4 ounces of British Challenger hops, and Hungarian oak shavings, simple with 3 ingredients and 11% alcohol strong. It's based off old historical stock ales made to be blended with lighter beers to increase alcohol, generally brewed with the strong first runnings of other beers and aged for a long time in oak casks. Who knows what it will be like, but I'm looking forward to it.
Until then, I'll be drinking Mikaelas.
The good news is that I seem to be stocking up for the winter months, with every carboy and bucket filled with beer. As of tonight, I have both the new Big Sky IPA (I'll get to that in a bit) and Bastogne Tripel #2 in primary, as well as the original Ella, Fair Trade Stout (already on the coffee), and my Champagne Lager in a cold secondary. Also there's a four-gallon batch of hard apple cider in primary in my closet that just finished fermenting on wine yeast. A quick treatment of potassium sorbate (to kill the yeast), some extra sugar for sweetening, and some glycerin for mouthfeel (maybe), as well as a quick degassing (so it's not semi-carbonated in the bottle), I'll throw it in some bottles to drink up immediately. Lastly, Annabelle is in the bottle (too soon, but I had to make space for the Lager's secondary), getting carbonated then being put on ice for a few months (maybe under a snowbank, who knows).
Last week's brewing was spectacular: the Tripel mashed, brewed, and fermented perfectly. A quick secondary and she'll be into the bottles in no time.
Things were similar today, except for the perfectly brewed IPA turned into a whole other monster at the last second. A leak in my immersion chiller hose diluted the five gallons to just over 6 gallons while cooling...whoops. On the bright side, the IPA was of modest gravity and relatively lightly hopped, so the new beer is a typical gravity, moderately to highly-hopped American pale ale, which I had on deck to make in a few batches anyway, so I'm bummed that I won't be getting the beer I was planning on, but thankful that such an ideal brew day wasn't a waste of time and money as well. The good news is that I made all my volumes and measurements spot on (otherwise) and my efficiency was a more than respectable 74%, which means I'm doing everything right (again, otherwise).
Next Sunday is my birthday, and though I'd like to brew a batch on my 21st, I'll just be getting back from Ball State's homecoming with Molly's family and will be hitting the bar and B-Dubs immediately thereafter. So in two weeks time (which is like brewing withdrawal for me) I'll be back at the burner with my Stock Ale, an experiment of 20 pounds of Munich malt, 4 ounces of British Challenger hops, and Hungarian oak shavings, simple with 3 ingredients and 11% alcohol strong. It's based off old historical stock ales made to be blended with lighter beers to increase alcohol, generally brewed with the strong first runnings of other beers and aged for a long time in oak casks. Who knows what it will be like, but I'm looking forward to it.
Until then, I'll be drinking Mikaelas.
posted by Sam Reese at 9:16 PM
1 Comments:
Mom's back from DR...good thing you weren't drinking the beer there....Presidente....not much to cheer about:)
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