Lager season is over, and it's time to start busting into some serious ale brewing. I'm excited about this, partly because the whole temperature control thing about lagers is a little stressful, and partly because I did some good stuff last year that I want to improve on, and some stuff I want to try out new. I'm going to try a few different incarnations of my rye beer that I did last year. I feel like that was a really good first effort, and could turn into a sort of always on tap haus beer type of thing. I'd like to redden the color a little, and see what sort of interesting things I can do with it, while still letting the rye drive the flavor.
But first on the docket was to do a barleywine. I used a White Labs ale yeast most of last year, and while it did some good beers, it also pooped out on the last few, which led to some tremendously over carbonated stouts, and some spectacular Brown Ale bottle bombs. I decided to use Wyeast 1056 American Ale to do a few right off the bat, and since I didn't have much carboy space, I decided to do a one gallon batch, and start repitching the yeast cake. I haven't done a barleywine before, partly due to the smallness of my MLT, so a one gallon was perfect. I would only need to mash a few pounds of grain, so I could make it as thin of a mash as I wanted. Here it is:
One Gallon Christmas Barleywine-
Fermentables-
2 Row Pale Malt (organic)- 3 lbs
Crystal 60- 4 ounces
Hops-
Cascade- .5 ounces- 90 minutes
Cascade- .5 ounces- Knockout
Yeast-
Wyeast 1056 American Ale- Pitched straight from the smack pack
Mash-
152- infusion
Gravity Target/Actual
1.086/1.068
The general idea behind this was to do a pretty big, super hoppy American style Barleywine, ferment it in a one gallon jug, decant it to two separate growlers after the primary fermentation, and then bottle in a few months. I'm thinking I'll bottle it in some Duvel bottles, as they are such a heavy gauge, and will easily hold the pressure if the carbonation gets too much in the coming months. I'll let it sit til Christmas, and then hand it out to family and friends.
The gravity came out low because I had not really done a one gallon batch in the stockpot I used, so it was a little difficult to know how long I could boil to get the evaporation that I was looking for. I collecting two gallons, and boiling for almost two hours, and ended up with a little over one gallon. I probably could have gone a little longer, since my last hop addition was going to be at knockout, and then I could have topped up the fermenter if I needed any volume. Brew and learn, I guess. It should still be real interesting as I boiled it pretty hot for so long. There was little in the way of character malts, so most of the color will come from the caramelized sugars. The Cascades should explode in aroma when these get poured. I was literally able to take it from knockout to pitching temps in 8 minutes, so the aroma addition will be real fresh.
Note to self: anytime you do a really big beer in a one gallon jug, add a blow off tube. The initial fermentation was positively volcanic. Awesome, but messy. It was pumping out some fantastic Cascade aromas too.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Darkish American Lager No. 2
Every brewer hears about how if you do the same beer with two different yeast, you end up with two completely different beers. I had never done that before, but my last lager of the season gave me the perfect opportunity.
The first version of this was made a month ago with an American Pilsner yeast strain. I did my smoke beer two weeks ago with a Bavarian strain. The American strain is sort of geared toward accentuating hoppiness. The hallmark of a Bavarian Lager is the malts, so this was set up perfectly.
Darkish American Lager No. 2-
Fermentables-
German Pilsner Malt- 5 lbs
Vienna Malt- 3 lbs
Crystal 60- 2.5 oz
Cara Vienna- 4.375 oz
Cara Hell- 9.125 oz
Black Patent- 1/2 oz
Hops-
Nugget- 1 oz- 60 minutes
Vanguard- 1 oz- 8 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast Bavarian Lager 2206- Yeast cake from the Rauchbier
Mash-
152 infusion/168 decoction mashout
Gravity target/actual-
1.048/1.054
I didn't have access to a computer for this beer, so I only sort of remembered what I had done the first time. The malts ended up being close, and the hops slightly closer, but there were some definite changes. The malts, especially the character malts were more geared toward using us what little was left of some stuff that's been sitting around for a while. The Nugget hops are pretty high in alpha acids, and with the slightly higher amounts, the bitterness of this beer are going to really pop. Much more bitter than I usually make.
The brewday went really well, after last time's gas issues. I ended up watching parts of several soccer matches while brewing this one. I was up high on my gravity, which I pin to better mash efficiency. I calculated my numbers based on 75%, but I was probably closer to 80%. Pitching to the yeast cake made it take right off, to the point that I'm going to rack it this weekend. I had a small sample fermenting in a test tube in the kitchen to keep an eye on gravity progress, and I'm thinking it should be ready to rack as soon as this weekend. It smelled very bready. Outside temperatures are starting to get warmer, and I'm anxious to get it to the lagering phase before the weather gets in to the 50's every day.
Up next ale season 2009 kicks off. I hadn't really been thinking much about ales recently, so I'm going to try to make some improvements to some of last years recipes, but there will be some completely new ones too. I'm going to start it off with a one gallon batch as a starter for an update/redo of my rye beer, which was one of my tastier efforts last spring.
The first version of this was made a month ago with an American Pilsner yeast strain. I did my smoke beer two weeks ago with a Bavarian strain. The American strain is sort of geared toward accentuating hoppiness. The hallmark of a Bavarian Lager is the malts, so this was set up perfectly.
Darkish American Lager No. 2-
Fermentables-
German Pilsner Malt- 5 lbs
Vienna Malt- 3 lbs
Crystal 60- 2.5 oz
Cara Vienna- 4.375 oz
Cara Hell- 9.125 oz
Black Patent- 1/2 oz
Hops-
Nugget- 1 oz- 60 minutes
Vanguard- 1 oz- 8 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast Bavarian Lager 2206- Yeast cake from the Rauchbier
Mash-
152 infusion/168 decoction mashout
Gravity target/actual-
1.048/1.054
I didn't have access to a computer for this beer, so I only sort of remembered what I had done the first time. The malts ended up being close, and the hops slightly closer, but there were some definite changes. The malts, especially the character malts were more geared toward using us what little was left of some stuff that's been sitting around for a while. The Nugget hops are pretty high in alpha acids, and with the slightly higher amounts, the bitterness of this beer are going to really pop. Much more bitter than I usually make.
The brewday went really well, after last time's gas issues. I ended up watching parts of several soccer matches while brewing this one. I was up high on my gravity, which I pin to better mash efficiency. I calculated my numbers based on 75%, but I was probably closer to 80%. Pitching to the yeast cake made it take right off, to the point that I'm going to rack it this weekend. I had a small sample fermenting in a test tube in the kitchen to keep an eye on gravity progress, and I'm thinking it should be ready to rack as soon as this weekend. It smelled very bready. Outside temperatures are starting to get warmer, and I'm anxious to get it to the lagering phase before the weather gets in to the 50's every day.
Up next ale season 2009 kicks off. I hadn't really been thinking much about ales recently, so I'm going to try to make some improvements to some of last years recipes, but there will be some completely new ones too. I'm going to start it off with a one gallon batch as a starter for an update/redo of my rye beer, which was one of my tastier efforts last spring.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
No Gas Smoke Beer
My MO for this year is to start to develop some of the stuff that worked well last year, but I also want to build some stuff that I can work on for next year. My brewing buddy Ted did a smoke beer last year that was absolutely fantastic, and it was definitely the inspiration for this one, with it's smooth forward smoke flavor and beautiful red hue:
No Gas Rauchbier-
Fermentables-
German Pilsner- 3 lbs
Dark Munich- 3 lbs
Rauch Malt- 3 lbs
Cara Pils- 8 oz
Black Patent- 1 oz
Hops-
Mt Hood- 7/8 oz- 90ish minutes
Crystal- .5 oz- 10 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast Bavarian Lager 2206- 1000 ml starter
OG Target/Actual-
1.050/1.068
I had been wanting to do a rauchbier, but I wanted an even amount of smoke in a medium sized beer. Something you drink several of because it's a strong taste but still refreshing. The hops are low alpha acid noble varietals. They should provide some nice bitterness, but I didn't want much since the star of this beer was supposed to be the malt. To that end, I picked a Bavarian Lager yeast, which is supposed to highlight malts. I'm planning on using the yeast cake in another version of the Darkish American Lager No. 2.
So it was a real cold brew day (somewhere in the 20's), and to keep the gas flowing I had to dunk my propane tank in hot water. And then about ten minutes into what was supposed to be a 90 minute boil, I realized I was about to completely run out. I dropped everything, ran to the gas station and got some more. My boil stopped for about 15 minutes as near as I can tell, since on my trip to get gas, I zeroed out my stopwatch. By the time I got the gas going again, my wort was about 160 degrees.
At that point, this beer was basically screwed in the sense that it was not going to end up with what I had wanted. I decided once it got boiling again to just boil another 60 minutes, and call it a beer. I had a lot more evaporation than I had anticipated, so I ended up with a much higher gravity and a lot less beer. Something like 4 gallons or so.
Oh well. As I always tell my dad when he's having issues with his beers: the worst case scenario is you made beer. I'm thinking once it's in the bottle, I'll lay it down for a while, as the higher gravity with the smoke is going to need some time to condition.
I also now have two propane tanks, so I'll never run out again. Now I just need it to stay cold long enough to do another lager before spring arrives.
No Gas Rauchbier-
Fermentables-
German Pilsner- 3 lbs
Dark Munich- 3 lbs
Rauch Malt- 3 lbs
Cara Pils- 8 oz
Black Patent- 1 oz
Hops-
Mt Hood- 7/8 oz- 90ish minutes
Crystal- .5 oz- 10 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast Bavarian Lager 2206- 1000 ml starter
OG Target/Actual-
1.050/1.068
I had been wanting to do a rauchbier, but I wanted an even amount of smoke in a medium sized beer. Something you drink several of because it's a strong taste but still refreshing. The hops are low alpha acid noble varietals. They should provide some nice bitterness, but I didn't want much since the star of this beer was supposed to be the malt. To that end, I picked a Bavarian Lager yeast, which is supposed to highlight malts. I'm planning on using the yeast cake in another version of the Darkish American Lager No. 2.
So it was a real cold brew day (somewhere in the 20's), and to keep the gas flowing I had to dunk my propane tank in hot water. And then about ten minutes into what was supposed to be a 90 minute boil, I realized I was about to completely run out. I dropped everything, ran to the gas station and got some more. My boil stopped for about 15 minutes as near as I can tell, since on my trip to get gas, I zeroed out my stopwatch. By the time I got the gas going again, my wort was about 160 degrees.
At that point, this beer was basically screwed in the sense that it was not going to end up with what I had wanted. I decided once it got boiling again to just boil another 60 minutes, and call it a beer. I had a lot more evaporation than I had anticipated, so I ended up with a much higher gravity and a lot less beer. Something like 4 gallons or so.
Oh well. As I always tell my dad when he's having issues with his beers: the worst case scenario is you made beer. I'm thinking once it's in the bottle, I'll lay it down for a while, as the higher gravity with the smoke is going to need some time to condition.
I also now have two propane tanks, so I'll never run out again. Now I just need it to stay cold long enough to do another lager before spring arrives.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Darkish American Lager No. 1
I hadn't brewed in a month, mostly due to a crazy work schedule, and it was time to get this show back on the road.
The recipe-
Fermentables-
Pilsner- 4 pounds
Vienna Malt- 4 pounds
CaraVienna- 4 ounces
CaraPils- 4 ounces
Crystal Malt 60L- 4 ounces
Black Patent Malt- 1 ounce
Hops-
Nugget (11)- .75 ounces- 60 minutes
Vanguard (4.6)- .875 ounces- 10 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast 2007 Pilsner- 1400 ml starter
Mash-
149/167- hot water infusions- missed this by 1 degree
Gravity Target/Actual-
1.045/1.044
My initial idea with this beer was to make an orange one. It struck me that orange as a taste is probably not all that hot in beer form (truth be told, "orange drink" was horrendous out of those leaky McDonalds cups when we were kids). I wanted some depth of flavor, but I didn't want grain soup, so while there are a few different character grains in it, they are low in weight (the Patent Malt was just there to darken it a little. And it does not take much. I think it was something like 2 tablespoons worth to get the color I wanted). The Nugget hops will give it an assertive forward bitterness, but the late Vanguard addition should make smooth too. Balance. I would have called it Balance Beer, but that sounds like maybe a manufacturer of energy bars for ladies have gone into the beer business. You know, like, it's beer, but it helps fight Osteoperosis. Maybe you could have a bunch of women sitting in those inexplicable Viagra commercial bathtubs in the middle of some far off field drinking them and laughing together. Or maybe a bunch of women in one bathtub. At least it would be a fun commercial anyway.
Super close on my temps, super close on my gravity, blah blah blah. It was nice to brew again. I'm glad my technique is consistent. My beers this year are going to be so much better. I can't wait to crack the first one of these open sometime late in March.
The recipe-
Fermentables-
Pilsner- 4 pounds
Vienna Malt- 4 pounds
CaraVienna- 4 ounces
CaraPils- 4 ounces
Crystal Malt 60L- 4 ounces
Black Patent Malt- 1 ounce
Hops-
Nugget (11)- .75 ounces- 60 minutes
Vanguard (4.6)- .875 ounces- 10 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast 2007 Pilsner- 1400 ml starter
Mash-
149/167- hot water infusions- missed this by 1 degree
Gravity Target/Actual-
1.045/1.044
My initial idea with this beer was to make an orange one. It struck me that orange as a taste is probably not all that hot in beer form (truth be told, "orange drink" was horrendous out of those leaky McDonalds cups when we were kids). I wanted some depth of flavor, but I didn't want grain soup, so while there are a few different character grains in it, they are low in weight (the Patent Malt was just there to darken it a little. And it does not take much. I think it was something like 2 tablespoons worth to get the color I wanted). The Nugget hops will give it an assertive forward bitterness, but the late Vanguard addition should make smooth too. Balance. I would have called it Balance Beer, but that sounds like maybe a manufacturer of energy bars for ladies have gone into the beer business. You know, like, it's beer, but it helps fight Osteoperosis. Maybe you could have a bunch of women sitting in those inexplicable Viagra commercial bathtubs in the middle of some far off field drinking them and laughing together. Or maybe a bunch of women in one bathtub. At least it would be a fun commercial anyway.
Super close on my temps, super close on my gravity, blah blah blah. It was nice to brew again. I'm glad my technique is consistent. My beers this year are going to be so much better. I can't wait to crack the first one of these open sometime late in March.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Holy crap
The news: I have not brewed yet this calendar year.
More news: I will brew a lager this weekend.
I have just finished up an epic month long work related project. I am ready to brew again. I had planned on doing a one gallon batch to get the yeast cake for a big lager, but I'm going to scratch that. I've probably got another month and a half at best for doing lagers, and I'm going to try to squeeze three brew days out of that.
TBC
More news: I will brew a lager this weekend.
I have just finished up an epic month long work related project. I am ready to brew again. I had planned on doing a one gallon batch to get the yeast cake for a big lager, but I'm going to scratch that. I've probably got another month and a half at best for doing lagers, and I'm going to try to squeeze three brew days out of that.
TBC
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Lager season commences
I've gone on a few times about how I'm pretty much bound by the weather around here as to what I brew. With temps dropping down for the winter, it was time to brew a lager.
My dogs are friends with a number of dogs in our hood. One of them happens to belong to the head brewer for a pretty well known local brewery. I won't say who the brewery is, but you can probably guess it if your favorite movie is The Three Amigos, and your favorite band is Pink Floyd (Syd Barret version, of course). To make a long story short, he got a packet of hops a little while back that he couldn't really use. It was a little under three ounces of pellet hops. He gave them to me, with the stipulation that I'd give him a few to see what these hops were like. So, I give you: Three Dogs Lager:
Three Dogs Lager:
Fermentables-
Pale Six Row- 7 lbs
Flaked Maize- 2 lbs
Cara Pils- 8 oz
Hops-
Mt Hood- 1.5 oz- 60 minutes
GR Select Pellets- 2 oz- 15 minutes
GR Select Pellets- 1.875 oz- 5 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast 2007- Pilsner- 1000 ml starter straight off the stir plate.
Mash-
149 infusion
Gravity target/actual-
1.051/1.046
I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do with this. Chris' brewery is known for some pretty hoppy beers (their mild would probably be called a IPA at some places), so I wanted to be sure that I brewed this in a way that would showcase the hops in a flavor/aroma sort of way. There aren't many commercial examples of the classic American Pilsner, so I wasn't too hemmed in by any classic guidelines. This is a style that German brewers started doing when they came to America, and as such they used the ingredients that they had on hand. They found lots of corn here, hence the flaked maize. Six row malt to help covert the corn. Cara pils to add some body and foam.
The brewing went pretty good. I missed my numbers for the first time in a while, but I am chalking that up to the maize. I hadn't used it much before, and never used six row, so I'm not too worried about it. It'll still have a decent amount of punch. The hops are all German in origin. The Mt Hood is a Hallertauer offshoot, and the GR Select is a low alpha acid Tettnanger hybrid. I threw everything I had in on the two final additions, so the hoppiness should jump out of this beer, because the grain is not malty at all.
I have to give an honorable mention to Kerry on this beer with her timely Christmas presents. Santa..er..Kerry gave me a really nice digital thermometer, and a refractometer. Really good equipment, easy to calibrate. It definitely made things easier today.
Not so nice was my discovery yesterday that my Altbier had an infection. Every bottle had a nice layer of scum forming on the top. This was a big bummer, as I had some high hopes for that recipe. Needless to say, it was a big time cleaning day today. Pretty much every brewing implement I own got a long soak in some hot PBW, with a long soak in sanitizer after. I tossed my old hoses, so I'm hoping this is a one time thing.
My dogs are friends with a number of dogs in our hood. One of them happens to belong to the head brewer for a pretty well known local brewery. I won't say who the brewery is, but you can probably guess it if your favorite movie is The Three Amigos, and your favorite band is Pink Floyd (Syd Barret version, of course). To make a long story short, he got a packet of hops a little while back that he couldn't really use. It was a little under three ounces of pellet hops. He gave them to me, with the stipulation that I'd give him a few to see what these hops were like. So, I give you: Three Dogs Lager:
Three Dogs Lager:
Fermentables-
Pale Six Row- 7 lbs
Flaked Maize- 2 lbs
Cara Pils- 8 oz
Hops-
Mt Hood- 1.5 oz- 60 minutes
GR Select Pellets- 2 oz- 15 minutes
GR Select Pellets- 1.875 oz- 5 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast 2007- Pilsner- 1000 ml starter straight off the stir plate.
Mash-
149 infusion
Gravity target/actual-
1.051/1.046
I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do with this. Chris' brewery is known for some pretty hoppy beers (their mild would probably be called a IPA at some places), so I wanted to be sure that I brewed this in a way that would showcase the hops in a flavor/aroma sort of way. There aren't many commercial examples of the classic American Pilsner, so I wasn't too hemmed in by any classic guidelines. This is a style that German brewers started doing when they came to America, and as such they used the ingredients that they had on hand. They found lots of corn here, hence the flaked maize. Six row malt to help covert the corn. Cara pils to add some body and foam.
The brewing went pretty good. I missed my numbers for the first time in a while, but I am chalking that up to the maize. I hadn't used it much before, and never used six row, so I'm not too worried about it. It'll still have a decent amount of punch. The hops are all German in origin. The Mt Hood is a Hallertauer offshoot, and the GR Select is a low alpha acid Tettnanger hybrid. I threw everything I had in on the two final additions, so the hoppiness should jump out of this beer, because the grain is not malty at all.
I have to give an honorable mention to Kerry on this beer with her timely Christmas presents. Santa..er..Kerry gave me a really nice digital thermometer, and a refractometer. Really good equipment, easy to calibrate. It definitely made things easier today.
Not so nice was my discovery yesterday that my Altbier had an infection. Every bottle had a nice layer of scum forming on the top. This was a big bummer, as I had some high hopes for that recipe. Needless to say, it was a big time cleaning day today. Pretty much every brewing implement I own got a long soak in some hot PBW, with a long soak in sanitizer after. I tossed my old hoses, so I'm hoping this is a one time thing.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Biere de la Voie
I think that most people get the idea that the French are mostly effeminate snooty wine drinkers. I'm sure that unless you're a big beer fiend/brewer, most Americans are completely unaware that the French really have a beer style all their own. I confirmed this the other day at work, when I quizzed six dudes about French beer (one of whom used to bar tend).
Biere de Garde is a style that is a close cousin to the Belgian farmhouse Ales. In theory it's the beer of the miners, farmers and drunken cycling fans lining the cobblestone sections of the Paris-Roubaix. In brewing practice terms, it's an ale that is fermented at low ale temps, and then lagered (garde being the French counterpart for the German word lager) for a period of time. It's got a malty backbone that would be similar to some Belgian beers, or even the German Altbier, and the hoppiness should tend to be a bit more spicy as opposed to fruity. Like some French brewer found some two year old hops in his hayloft, and decided, what the hell, I'll use them anyway. So then:
Biere de la Voie-
Fermentables-
Belgian Two Row Pale- 7 lbs
Vienna- 2 lbs
Munich Light- 1 lb
Crystal 40L- 3.5 oz- I had actually planned on 8 ounces, but this is what I had in stock. It was more of a coloring addition than for flavor, so no big deal.
Table sugar- 8 oz
Hops-
Fuggle- 1.25 oz- 60 minutes
Mount Hood- 1 oz- 10 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast 1007 German Ale- 1000 ml starter. This was what Wyeast recommends for Biere De Garde, and I happened to have it to hand, so it worked out nicely.
Mash-
149/168- hot water infusion
Gravity target/actual-
1.058/1.058
Another ho hum brewday. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy myself. Just that nothing went wrong. I nailed all my temps. I nailed my target gravity. I guess I'm going to have to start writing a little more about why I'm choosing what I am for ingredients, or else I'll have nothing to write about.
As far as the ingredients go, I pretty much went with a standard Biere De Garde grain bill list. Table sugar to dry it out a little. The yeast is not typically a high attenuator, but the low mash temp, along with the sugar should get me to 80%. I'm going to start doing a force fermentation from now on to figure out what my actual terminal gravity will be, but I didn't have the extra yeast to do so this time.
Speaking of the yeast. If you ever decide to use Wyeast 1007, use a blow off tube. I do not have one at the moment, and it went absolutely crazy with this beer, blowing the carboy cap off twice. I suppose I could have tried to harvest the yeast off my pantry floor, but it's probably not the most...ahem...sanitary place to get your brewing yeast. A true top fermenting yeast. On the bright side, our furnace died sometime Saturday night, and the yeast kept working even though the temps strayed down into lager territory. I haven't tasted a beer that I've made with this yet, but I like how it works in a technical sense.
Biere de Garde is a style that is a close cousin to the Belgian farmhouse Ales. In theory it's the beer of the miners, farmers and drunken cycling fans lining the cobblestone sections of the Paris-Roubaix. In brewing practice terms, it's an ale that is fermented at low ale temps, and then lagered (garde being the French counterpart for the German word lager) for a period of time. It's got a malty backbone that would be similar to some Belgian beers, or even the German Altbier, and the hoppiness should tend to be a bit more spicy as opposed to fruity. Like some French brewer found some two year old hops in his hayloft, and decided, what the hell, I'll use them anyway. So then:
Biere de la Voie-
Fermentables-
Belgian Two Row Pale- 7 lbs
Vienna- 2 lbs
Munich Light- 1 lb
Crystal 40L- 3.5 oz- I had actually planned on 8 ounces, but this is what I had in stock. It was more of a coloring addition than for flavor, so no big deal.
Table sugar- 8 oz
Hops-
Fuggle- 1.25 oz- 60 minutes
Mount Hood- 1 oz- 10 minutes
Yeast-
Wyeast 1007 German Ale- 1000 ml starter. This was what Wyeast recommends for Biere De Garde, and I happened to have it to hand, so it worked out nicely.
Mash-
149/168- hot water infusion
Gravity target/actual-
1.058/1.058
Another ho hum brewday. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy myself. Just that nothing went wrong. I nailed all my temps. I nailed my target gravity. I guess I'm going to have to start writing a little more about why I'm choosing what I am for ingredients, or else I'll have nothing to write about.
As far as the ingredients go, I pretty much went with a standard Biere De Garde grain bill list. Table sugar to dry it out a little. The yeast is not typically a high attenuator, but the low mash temp, along with the sugar should get me to 80%. I'm going to start doing a force fermentation from now on to figure out what my actual terminal gravity will be, but I didn't have the extra yeast to do so this time.
Speaking of the yeast. If you ever decide to use Wyeast 1007, use a blow off tube. I do not have one at the moment, and it went absolutely crazy with this beer, blowing the carboy cap off twice. I suppose I could have tried to harvest the yeast off my pantry floor, but it's probably not the most...ahem...sanitary place to get your brewing yeast. A true top fermenting yeast. On the bright side, our furnace died sometime Saturday night, and the yeast kept working even though the temps strayed down into lager territory. I haven't tasted a beer that I've made with this yet, but I like how it works in a technical sense.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
