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| By davidank on Feb 15th 2007, 3:53 pm | Permalink |
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Well, it was a snow day for me yesterday and I had off work. I brewed a wheat ale (6lbs pilsner, 1/2 lb crystal 20L, 3 lbs wheat, and 1/4 lb quaker instant oats, saaz hops, T-58 yeast) and I cleaned out some well overdue fermenters that were sitting with yeast sludge in them. I have been very busy lately and this is the first time I brewed in about 3 months. It was a good break though to think about what direction I wanted to go with my brewing. My 'old ale' that I used molasses in it, I don't like very much. I can taste the molasses in it and although I like molasses on butter bread I don't favor it in beer, at least the one I made, lol. My friend Ray was over the last few weeks ago and he had a few and said it was good. Everybody has their own opinion. My porter has been bottle conditioning for at least 3 or 4 months now and when I let some bottles chill in the fridge for a while, it is good good good! I had a Dead Guy Ale about a month or so ago at a casino in PA somewhere and it was good, Denny has a clone recipe of it and I want to try and brew it. I used my corona mill for the first time and cracked my grains for my wheat beer and the corona mill works great, in my opinion. THe only thins is I thought my efficiency would be much higher than it was, but efficiency really is not at the forefront of my concerns, just knowing how my system works and know how to make great beer with my system and ingredients. I am going to pick two beers, my wheat beer and the dead guy ale cone from denny, and keep brewing them over and over, until I tweek them to how I like them. I have done this in the past with one beer, and it works, but now I want to do it with two beers and keep switching back and forth, brew the wheat beer, then the dead guy clone, wheat beer, etc, and make them into GREAT beers! I need to get to readying and posting again on TB, even though I have been reading a lot of TB, probably about 2 times a week. I have been busy with other things, but I have to get back to brewing too. That's it for this entry. |
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| By davidank on Nov 22nd 2006, 4:01 pm | Permalink |
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Brewed a batch of beer yesterday, and old ale. I didn't hit my gravity, which really bummed me out. I was shooting for a gravity of 1.080 and I hit 1.056 - must of been the pre-crushed malt AGAIN that I didn't want to waste and I used. I NEED a grain mill and to buy uncrushed malt and crush it when I need it. I am glad I had my hydrometer to adjust the hops. I used my pacific gem hops. They are supposed to have a black currant and florally aroma according to what I have read. I guess this is kind of an experient beer to see how I like the Pacific Gem hops and the 1 cup of molasses in the old ale. I used US56 yeast instead of my WY1272 starter, which I felt better to not use since it was going to be about the 5th or 6th time of using that yeast. Better safe than sorry I want the beer to turn out good. I typically don't brew during the week, but I had 3 empty fermenters and I wanted to fill one up. |
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| By davidank on Nov 9th 2006, 3:39 pm | Permalink |
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Last night I bottled half a batch - one case- of my porter and racked the other half of the batch on a vanilla bean. I will test it after about a week and see where it is, if I need to add another vanilla bean, or if I can bottle. The porter when I bottled it, running through the hose was lighter than I expected it to be, but it was in the hose which I think makes it appear lighter than in a glass, lol. I hope the porter turned out delicious, I guess I will find out in about 2 weeks. I also bottled half my batch of mild ale with S-04 yeast, and racked the other half on 1 oz of cascade whole hops. This will be my first dry hopping of any beers that I have made so far. I will see if it has any butterscotch flavors in the beer as everybody is mentioning about. I didn't notice any in my test tastings, but I did ferment and condition it cold, which I pretty much do all my beers. It definitely has gotten worm out lately, so I am glad that I didn't make my lager yet. I have to make another batch of my house ale. I want to try it with 6 row, and see how the 'grainyness' that everybody is mentioning is in my house ale, shich is an amber/pale ale. I want to find the recipe for the restaurant cheeseburger in paradise, the Island Ale, it is so good, and I cannot seem to find it anywhere on the internet. I also want to make a wheat ale, and use my T-58 yeast. So the wheat ale, my house ale, and the lager are the next 3 brews that I am going to make. I need to make a basic website where I can keep all my recipes that I brewed so far, and my notes of each recipe. I think that'd be neat, and that is kinda on my list of things to do. |
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| By davidank on Jul 8th 2006, 2:22 pm | Permalink |
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I guess it's about time I enter another journal entry... I am getting better at brewing. I am understanding what certain ingredients, the malts, yeast, ho9ps, etc, will lend to the finished beer. I still have A LOT of brewing to do to learn what does what when brewing. I am beginning to really notice the differences between the hops. They to me at least, smell all the same before the boil, but after the hops are boiled in the beer they all lend different qualities and aromas to the finished beer. My last beer, the one with all saaz hops, 2 oz boiled for 60 minutes and 2 oz boiled for 10 minutes, turned out TOO potent on the hop aroma. It is drinkable and not 'TOO' bad, but it's too overboard on the aroma hops with the saaz. Another learning thing to add to my 'mental' brewing book. If it was cascade at the 10 minutes boil in that beer it would of tasted a lot better I think. I just brewed my rye beer about 2 weeks ago. I went under a bit on the rye according to Denny and looking at other rye beers, but I didn't want to go overboard as I never used rye before and I wanted to see if I liked it. I used 1/2 oz cascade boiled for 20 minutes and 1 oz of sterling (because I had sterling on hand and I tried the Rogue saison that is said to use sterling) for 60 minutes for an IBU of about 25ish, which is what the Rogue website said their saison has. I am excited about how my rye beer will turn out, I have my fingers crossed.  As I stated I am really getting to know how things work with brewing and my system, and I am DEFINITELY getting closer to making brews that are VERY tasty to my palate and I am getting closer on how to EXACTLY do things (when to add the hops, and what hops and malts to use, etc) when making my beer so they turn out some tasty brews.The next step I want to do in my brewing is to brew the shark's tooth pale ale and hit all the numers, the OG and etc exactly, and see how it turns out. Then I want to tweek it (it I need to)to my tastes so I want to brew it a couple times in a row, I think that will be a good learning thing to do for my brewing education. Maybe trying a different hop in the 2nd batch or/and change the time a certain hops is boiled and/or use a darker crystal malt the 2nd time.This fall I want to brew my pumpkin beer again, but this time it will be all grain and not extract with steeped grains. I will actually mash the pumpkin, lol. (I knew I should of mashed it but i was eager to do a pumpkin beer and I just did it anyway, silly me, don't I ever learn, lol). I am not going to go heavy on the spices, I will use some honey malt in the beer, the mashed pumpkin, and some crystal, and a yeast to add some spicey esters to it, not sure which one yet. In my experience I DO NOT like adding cinnamon and spices to beer, so I will use a yeast that will best add the esters to the pumpkin beer. I guess that is it for now. I can't wait to move, I want to get a bigger house, so I will have a designated area for my brewery instead of keeping things in my kitchen closet and fermenters with fermenting beer on the corner nook in my kitchen...So I can brew more beer, and have more on hand, and make a bar that has drafts on it, and a cold room to keep the fermenitng lager in it! WOo Hoo! |
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| By davidank on May 7th 2006, 1:11 am | Permalink |
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I just brewed an ale recipe this week (tuesday may 2nd) and I used a total of 4 oz of sAAZ WHOLE HOPS FROM FRESHOPS.COM. i USED THE SAAZ BECAUSE i LIKE THE pILSNER uRQUELL BEER i HAD IN ATLANTIC CITY AND i WANTED TO USE THOSE HOPS. I love whole hops, they are awesome! The aroma from them when I opened the package, and when I was brewing was great!Also the aroma coming from the air lock is soooo good I want to drink the beer now! I only hope the beer is as good as it's aroma. I think I need to use whole hops and to use a big amount at the last 10 minutes of the boil to achieve a beer that fits my tastes. This all saaz beer I just made smells the best out of the air lock of any beer I'd ever made. So far saaz are my favorite hops!! I bottled my summer ale that I used real corn in the mash and split the batch using Nottingham and Wyeast 1272 in the other. I can taste that twang from the nottingham that efverybody talks about and I don't like it. The other with the 1272 yeast is pretty good even after only 4 days in the bottle. I think it would of tasted even better with a big 2 oz of hops at the 10 minute boil addition, but I am learning. I also brewed my porter on thursday may 4th. I made a half batch, 3 gallons. I wanted to see hoe it turns out first before I make 5 gallons. I never made a porter and it's brand new breing for my like learning from the first step again, kind of I guess. The next time I brew, I have a cell phone that takes pretty good video. I am going to record my self brewing, I think it will be neat! If I get the memory cleared out I can probaly record an hour at a time, and I can use windows media player to splice all the sections together. (I think). I am going to give it a try. I want to try some other yeasts, like the Wyeast kolsch yeast, and maybe a few others, and see if I like them. So far my favorite yeast is the Wyeast 1272 and the like. I am starting to better narrow down what I like in my beer recipes and I am getting closer to my 'house ale' beer. I am getting better at distinguishing the different flavors and aromas from beers and what they are. I know that I like my beers to have a lot of hop bite, a spicey bite and a lot of hop aroma. I guess that is it for this journal entry. |
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