TastyBrew.com | User Journal

By David Ankenbrant on Jul 8th 2006, 2:22 pm

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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!