I’ve had little time for brewing, blogging or almost anything else due to our baby taking up a lot of our time! He’s just over 6 months now and is a really fun addition to our lives.
However, as it begins to warm up here in the Southwest, my desire to brew is growing again - I hope to brew a honey brown ale as #0801. I’m also planning to pick up one or two 2.5 gallon kegs to reduce the hassle of bottling.
See you soon!
Filed under: Weblog, General on April 4th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
0704 is in the bottles. 4.5 oz by weight of dextrose was used for priming and the overall yield was 24 twelve oz. bottles and 13 twenty-two oz. bombers.
Since the fermentation was so slow and steady I expect to wait at least 10 days for the beer to carbonate. Just in time for Christmas!
Filed under: 0704 - Sandia Pale Ale on December 9th, 2007 | No Comments »
After having a few yeast troubles, Sandia Pale Ale was off and running. This has been a much slower and more steady fermentation with airlock bubbling still going steady after 9 days. I attribute this to the much milder temperatures - 67-70 F.
36 hours - 1 bubble/3 sec.
4 days - 1 bubble/5 sec.
6 days - 1 bubble/15 sec.
9 days - 1 bubble/ 24 sec.
Filed under: 0704 - Sandia Pale Ale on December 5th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
On Sunday I used a Wyeast “smack pack” which never really swelled up after a couple of hours. I figured it was off to a slow start and pitched it anyway. When I had no activity at all in the first 16 hours I checked the package and saw that the date was in mid-June, making my pitch date very close to the 6 month window for Wyeast packs. In other words, I pitched dead yeast!
Monday I dropped by the local homebrew store to pick up some more yeast before my Sandia Pale Ale became Sandia Lambic. I bought another pack of Wyeast 1322 Northwest, popped it in the store (after paying for it of course) and pitched it when I got home.
This morning I have activity and 0704 is off and running. I’m hoping that no foreign yeast took up residence in my wort during the lag time; this should prove to be a good test of my sanitzation.
Filed under: 0704 - Sandia Pale Ale on November 27th, 2007 | No Comments »
Well it’s been a while and we’ve certainly been busy with our newborn baby but it’s back to brewing, finally! Today I put together a Sierra Nevada inspired Pale Ale. Instead of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, I’ll name it after the beautiful mountains east of Albuquerque (and in the header of this web site) - the Sandias
I won’t detail my process, which was the same as it was for 0703 - Hard Labor Ale except for the addition of some Irish Moss at 10 minutes before the end of the boil.
The fermenter is all set in a dark pantry at 68 degrees. I plan to give this 7-10 days minimum to ferment.
Technorati Tags: homebrew, beer, Sierra Nevada, pale ale, LME, malt extract, Albuquerque, Sandia
Filed under: 0704 - Sandia Pale Ale on November 25th, 2007 | No Comments »
9 days - Excellent clarity, no haze, color is good. Nose/aroma is good and hoppy. head formation and retention is ok, with slightly large loose foam. Taste is very malty and sweet with a nice bitter balance. I was hoping for a bit more hop flavor here, so I would probably add some hops at 30 minutes if I made this again. This is a small nitpick though, as this beer is very good with no discernible off flavors. The body is heavy but not overwhelming and it is helped by a nice amount of CO2 in suspension. The aftertaste is pleasant and malty. I would pay for this in a restaurant or bar. Grade: B+
Filed under: 0703 - Hard Labor Ale on September 22nd, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Last night I bottled 0703 Hard Labor Ale. I took some photos to show the process. By the end of this post you’ll probably understand why most homebrewers keg their beer instead of bottling it!
We start by sanitizing everything. The sanitizing tub has a funnel, racking cane, length of tubing, bottling wand and bottle caps. After a dip in sanitizing solution (I’m using 1/4 tsp. sodium bisulfite per gallon of water), the bottles go into the dishwasher for a couple of dry cycles. The heat also sanitizes the bottles as well as making sure they are dry and will not slip while handling.
Now we will prepare the priming sugar, which is what the yeast will consume to carbonate the beer in the bottles. 1 pint of filtered water is boiled and 5 oz. of dextrose (corn sugar) is dissolved in it. This is addded to the bottling carboy.
Then we rack the beer off of the trub and into a clean and sanitized carboy. Note the glass of beer reserved for tasting - very important!
After allowing the beer to settle for about an hour in the bottling carboy, it’s time to bottle. The beer is up on a counter and we will be bottling on the floor (this part is a bit hard on your back and knees!) The bowl you see in the photos is where the siphon is started by emptying out the sanitizing solution in the tube. The sanitized bottle caps are close at hand, as is the bench capper. Having someone help you is very helpful at this point.
The bottling wand works by remaining closed from the pressure in the siphon. To fill a bottle you press the end of the wand, which has a button, against the bottom of the bottle and the beer can flow out. When the wand is removed from the full bottle, the level of the beer drops and the correct amount of air is left in the top of the bottle. This batch yielded 1 case (12) 22oz. bombers and nearly a case (22) 12oz bottles. At about $28 for ingredients, that’s only $3.50 per 6-pack. Not too bad for real beer!
Technorati Tags: homebrew, beer, bottle, brown ale, malt extract, Albuquerque
Filed under: 0703 - Hard Labor Ale on September 11th, 2007 | No Comments »
3 Days - Nice clarity and color. Carbonation is nearly nonexistent. Hops is muted, suitable for a nut brown. Taste is sweet and malty, also fitting the style. Finish and aftertaste are nice with heavy malt. Here’s hoping it fully carbonates because this is pretty good beer. Grade: C+
5 days - There is a bit more carbonation now making the beer better. Grade: B-
7 days - I served up a few bottles of 0702 at a football tailgate party today. The carbonation was still low but I had several compliments and a couple of seasoned beer drinkers to give me useful commentary. In the bottles, this ale picked up a slight apple taste and a very slight sour aftertaste. Another drinker reported a slight hint of licorice as well as the apple taste - both of which acually complimented the beer. Grade: B-
20 days - The beer has improved and the aftertaste and fruity hints have all but disappeared. This beer is now quite good, too bad it’s almost gone! Grade: B
Filed under: 0702 - Newborn Ale on September 6th, 2007 | No Comments »
24 hours - TONS of activity with a huge 3″ krausen and non-stop airlock activity. I’m glad I chose my largest carboy as this thing is nearly full of foam! Temperatures are higher than I would like, 76-80F!
48 hours - A lot of activity but a much smaller krausen, steady airlock activity 1 bubble every 3 seconds.
72 hours - Slow but steady activity, bubbling every 4 seconds. Krausen is dissipated and yeast is flocculating well. Temp is back under control at 72F.
96 hours - Still a steady amount of CO2 coming out of the airlock, although very slow; bubbling every 40 seconds. A nice trub has formed and I hope to bottle this beer on the evening of Monday Sept. 10.
Filed under: 0703 - Hard Labor Ale on September 4th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Today I’m abandoning the pre-hopped kits and getting back to some better brewing. I’ll also be using a larger brewpot to create a full 5 gallon batch and will be cooling the worth with my one-of-a-kind immersion chiller. I’m brewing this American Brown Ale on Labor day, and of course I can’t ignore the fact that my wife might go into in labor any time now, so I’ll name this “Hard Labor Ale“.
Recipe:
7 lb. United Canadian amber liquid malt extract (LME)
2.5 gallons of water went into the brewpot along with the crystal malt. I turned on the burner and began to heat the water, pulling out the grainbag and crystal malt at 175 F.
I killed the heat and added the LME (which had spent the last 10 minutes in warm water to soften it) and stirred to dissolve. (Note that having the burner off while you add and disolve liquid malt extract will greatly reduce the chance you will scorch or burn it.)
I fired up the heat again and brought to a vigorous boil (as vigorous as you can get at 5200 feet above sea level). Added the bittering hops and boiled for 55 minutes.
With 5 minutes left in the 60 minute boil, I put the wort chiller in to sanitize and added the finishing hops, boiling for 5 more minutes. You can clearly see the accumulated scum from the pellet hops. I’ll definitely be using leaf hops next time if possible!
I covered the pot with some aluminum foil, hooked the chiller up to the sink and turned on a fairly low flow of cold water. There is a thermometer embedded in the exit tube of the chiller which allows me to monitor the temperature of the water coming out. This gives me a good idea of when the wort is cool. In this case I moved it to the primary carboy when the exit thermometer read 85F.
I moved the wort to the carboy which already contained 2.5 gallons of refrigerated purified water. The funnel has a straining insert which you can see in the photo. During the transfer of the wort this strainer became nearly 100% clogged with hops scum. Another reason to use leaf hops next batch.
After adding the cooled wort the resulting “green beer” was a nice 70F. I pitched the yeast, sloshed everything around for a couple of minutes to oxygenate, and sealed with an airlock.
Now the beer is sitting in the pantry at 71F and we wait for those yeast to do their jobs!
Technorati Tags: homebrew, beer, American, brown ale, LME, malt extract, Albuquerque
Filed under: 0703 - Hard Labor Ale on September 3rd, 2007 | No Comments »