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....

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.

10.B v4.0.0.0 dry hopped and in secondary

Right on schedule. The previous version is due to racked to the tertiary for gelatinizing next week if I did my cyphering correctly. Maybe I'd better go run the numbers again, as the click phrase goes. Sounds impressive, eh? You can use it. Use it at work. People will be in awe of you. Supervisors will take note and put you on the fast track to management. If already a manager, Sainthood. I need a real job...

Damn. Forgot to go get some hops...

I was supposed to go to Blue Ridge Hydroponics & Homebrew Supply today for an ounce of Styrian Hops for dry hopping my 10.B v4.0.0.0 but I forgot. The beer in the carboy has stopped working and I should have racked it to the secondary today, but... I was busy looking for an engineering job. Have to get my priorities straight. I'll gettum tomorrow, or I'll have to do it Monday. Hopefully I'll have an interview Monday, so I d'wanna have to fool with beer while getting pumped for an interview. Fah!

Have to make a note somewhere... that I will see... to get hops tomorrow before work!

Version Control

I am using a numeric representation of beer versions similar to Engineering version control thingys. For each style there will be the individual brewer's version of the beer.

"10B 0-0-0-0 would be your base recipe.
10B 1-0-0-0 would be a change in malt
10B 0-1-0-0 would be a change in hops
10B 0-0-1-0 would be a change in yeast
10B 0-0-0-1 would be a change in something else

A fifth digit could be your evaluation of the change. Maybe a "+" if you
wanted to retain the change or a "-" not to attempt that particular change
again."

This from having bounced the idea around with one of my homebrew homeboyz over the last few days. So the latest beer will be printed on the cap label thusly:

02/14/2010
10.B v4.0.0.0
Batch 1

Brewing another 10.B, version 4

Now that I have some Munich and Pale ale again, I'm going to revisit version three, make some changes in ferment-ables, hops, and yeast, and call it version 4. I'm getting a real late start, haven't even weighed out the grain yet or set up. It is almost 1:00 in the afternoon. No prob, I have the day off tomorrow. I don't think that I'm going to make note to the club that I'm brewing unless I do so real late. Too much going on should anyone actually show up. Trish isn't too happy about it: she cleaned & vacuumed the basement yesterday... including the grain spill that I forgot to clean up from under the water heater & furnace. Must... be... extra... careful today.

Yes, and no sooner had I finished crushing the grain did I realize that the bag that was catching the grain had a hole in the back. Which, of course, I didn't notice until I finished. FAH~!

Got all done and no boil overs. Cleaned up by 7:00. That was yesterday. Today, I have another 5.25 gallons of American Amber Ale merrily bubbling away in the Primary!

Racked 10B v.4.1.1.1 to secondary

Finally, got the ole brewery going again. I racked the beer to the secondary (committing the sin of using a 5 gallon carboy instead of the other 6 gallon one) and lost maybe a sixpack of beer and a quarter oz. of hops... D'oh! Oh, well. What's done is done. In my early morning thinking, I figured that I needed the other 6-er for when I brew again this Sunday... not realizing that the first one would be clean and ready by this time. Where did I put my coffee? Oh, it's upstairs...

Well, at least it is done.