A Beer and a Dog

"Why should I blog about brewing?", I asked. "Nothing like a beer and a dog...", So Sayeth Virtual Wayne.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Secondary... and a report on the 10.B's...

Racked the American IPA to the secondary yesterday... and not only did I use the 5 gallon carboy instead of the other 6 gallon carboy (wasting about6 40 cl of beer) but after I had gotten it all buttoned up with a towel wrapped about it to keep the light out and was cleaning out the primary carboy, a waft of Hops aroma arose from the primary - reminding me that I was supposed to dry hop the AIPA with an ounce of Cascades. Double D'oh! And so... I cleaned the other 6 gallon carboy, dumped in the hops, and racked the beer into it. Well, I guess that it was a good thing that I forgot to dry hop the beer after putting it into the second 5 gallon carboy... there would have been that much more hops wasted in the transfer.

And the two batches of American Amber Ale have been tasted and deemed potable. The v4.0.0.0 batch tasted and looked more like a porter as I didn't have any toasted barley for the grainbill so I used about a quarter lb. of a dark specialty malt (350 L.) to add some color... and it added some coffee taste as well. Not bad. I'll tell people that I was shooting for a Porter....

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Brewing an American IPA today...

12 lbs. grain, 68 IBUs, haven't done an IPA before, unless I had documented it on the hard drive that went ka-blewie. Don't think that I have.

Flame on at 11:20; Mashing began at 11:35. I have 6 gallons of hot sparge water in the cooler ready for lautering. The time is 11:50.

12:55 and the lautering has begun. The wort looks very clear: it didn't take much time at all to remove the particulate from the flow. When I was cracking the grist, I was concerned that the mix would be too fine, that there would be a lot of particulates in the runoff. Knock on wood, I guess it was OK. I'll add a gallon of sparge water at 1 gallon runoff. (I actually started adding sparge water at ¾ gallon of runoff: the top of the grain bed in the lauter tun was beginning to become visible. I added 1-1/2 gallon of hot water. Make a note of that.) Time: 1:05; one gallon runoff took 10 minutes. After dumping two gallons into the boiler and starting another 2 gallon measure, I looked into the Mash Tun at one gallon and again saw the grain bed... so I added another gallon and an arf. That's 4 gallons so far.

Added another gallon of water to the lauter tun; Need another two gallons of runoff to begin the boil. I should begin weighing out the hops for their additions. After flame on I let the runoff continue to flow and got about another gallon and an arf at like, zero gravity. I'll keep it in case there are... problems... If no problems I'll ditch it.

Flame on 2:30 I let it boil for about 10 min before I added the first hops. Ok, I forgot to add the hops when boil began... Alarms on my cell phone will remind me when to add hops 2-5.

I put a 4-pack of my American Amber Ale 4.0 into the fridge to celebrate the finish of this brew session, and we will see how that goes. V3.1.1.1 was almost ready to swill when I tried it Friday night, could use another week for sure. This one, v4.0, was bottled with 5 days less in the carboy... I wonder if this one is better carbonated. Tonite, tasting will be the telling tale.

4:00 - Ten more minutes of boil and then I add hope #5 and cut off the gas, then turn the cold water on to chill.

4:50 - Still chilling... chilling while I chill. I think that I'll close this up here and now. More later...

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

A-waiting beer.... carbonate, ye bahstids....

A customer, a refugee from Kenya, is burning a CD for me of African music. Really nice chap. I told him today that I would get a couple bottles of my current beer to him and he wants to try some of it. Least I could do for getting me some tunes. Who knows, it may inspire him to become a brewer hisself. Be better than drinking that ole Hennessey....

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Both American Pale Ales bottled

10.B v3.1.1.1 was in the secondary fermenter for 18 days and I racked it to the tertiary and added the gelatin mixture to clear it. I think that I let it (gelatin) sit too long before adding... it was getting jello-like... and I put the container in a bath of hot water to re-melt it before adding. There were globs of the stuff floating on the top even 5 days later when I had planned to bottle. I racked as much as I could from under the layer of gelatin without getting much into the bottling bucket. (Nothing like finding a globule of snot-like substance in the bottom of yer bottle as you are swilling it down...!) Looks like I wasted about 3/4 liter of beer in all transfer issues. Wound up with (50) 35 cl bottles at a final gravity of 1.012.

That was Sunday. On Monday I had planned to do the gelatin thing on my other batch, 10.B v4.0, but after the issues I had with the gelatin I decided to just bottle the stuff without doing the tertiary fermenter transfer and etc. I got 53 bottles with half a bottle in a plastic softdrink bottle to squeeze-gauge the carbonation. FG on this batch was also 1.012. ABV on both will be around 6.5-7% alcohol. Just where I was hoping it would be. Testing date: 22 March 2010.

Not one of these.. these... FAUX CyberDaves... but the TRUE CyberDave!


About CyberDave

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Contract engineering, working in the field in which I truly love: Mechanical Design.

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