TastyBrew.com | User Journal

By David Ankenbrant on May 7th 2006, 1:11 am

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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.