I’m just getting back into the hobby after a hiatus. No longer in beer siberia, the local liquour outlet carries 4 or 5 imported Hefe Weissens , which reduces the necessity considerably outside the expense.
Yesterday I bought a 20 pound propane tank, a King Kooker turkey fryer, and a 30 qt. stainless boil pot. I decided to quit messing around. There’s no reason I can’t do a full 5 gallon boil, right? I figure this should make for more consistency if anything.
I plan on using the Wyeast 3068 recommended for hefes, 70/30 wheat/barley extract, speise for priming and then using a genuine lager yeast for bottle conditioning.
When I first pitched it (added the yeast to the apple juice) it bubbled quite a bit. After 2 weeks I racked it, moving the now alcoholly tasting juice to a fresh clean bottle. I also added 2 cups of brown sugar, melted in 3 cups of water.
It continued to VERY quietly bubble. Almost like what you would see on the side of a glass of beer. It did that for about a week, and no I can detect no movement.
My current plan was to let it sit, happily aging, until the end of December, and then either bottle after priming, or racking it one more time. But the lack of activity has me bothered.
You are stressing about nothing. Make sure you keep the airlock full, and let it set in a dark place undisturbed. You will be pleasantly rewarded come December.
I’m racking this thread, and hope it meets with Mod approval (Brewing, being a hobby that can take time, will often have a thread fall dormant until it is time to post something new).
Update on my cider:
I left the bottle alone, down there in my basement, until the 3rd weekend of February, when I racked again, adding another cup of Brown sugar.
I tasted it, and it’s a bit watery, but obviosly hard. I’ll get a gravity when all is said and done…
In about 2 weeks, I will bottle. I’ll be priming with a can of juice concentrate, to both ferment in the bottle for carbonation, and to add a bit of appley taste back into it.
In a month, I’ll be enjoying my product. I’ll keep the bottles in the basement, and will hopefully notice their taste as they continue to age. Mmmmm… I can’t wait!
The apple juice concentrate will also help with the “watery” taste, as will the bubbles. To combat that with the next batch, add honey and turn it into a cyser, or find someone with a crabapple tree and add 15% crabapple juice to your must.
Sounds like it’s coming along nicely, though. Be sure to stash some bottle for imbibing in the fall.
I recently kegged both an imperial russian stout and an oktoberfest that I had sitting around in carboys. I made them from [mostly] extract and they both turned out good, although the oktoberfest was a little too light bodied. Next time I look for an oktoberfest recipe I’ll look for something with some more partial mashing of grains or I’ll just bump it up myself.
I’ll probably be brewing again soon since it’s not getting cold enough in the garage to halt fermentation anymore. :smack: Also, I have a friend who’s interested in brewing, so I’d like to have him over to share in the experience. When’s teach a friend to brew day again?
We have a carboy of zinfandel under the stairs that we started in October of last year that we’ll probably bottle in the next month or two. This season’s crush will be our first actually making wine from grapes, so I’m looking forward to that(my wife and I are taking an enology course currently).
Cider - 1st batch - Made with 4 gallons of unpreserved cider from a local orchard. Heated to 180F for 20 minutes, with 2# brown sugar added. Fermented 4 weeks with WLP775 English Cider Yeast (White labs, liquid yeast). Sweetened with 1# lactose at bottling. Primed with 5 oz corn sugar. VERY NICE. Apple flavors are prominent, with enough sweetness to make this a very nice drink.
2nd batch - Made with 5 gallons of supermarket juice (pasturized, unsweetened, unpreserved, in 1/2gal bottles), poured (with 2# brown sugar) onto the yeast cake from batch #1. Sweetened & primed as above. Haven’t opened it yet, but it should also be great!
Beers are going well, I made a razberry wheat with WLP320 American Hefeweizen Ale Yeast and 4oz of razberry extract. This is a HUGE winner. Fantastic tastes, with just enough fruit to balance it out nicely.
My chocolate stout (made with 16oz cocoa powder) isn’t horrible, but I don’t think I like stouts/porters that much. The chocolate is not very noticible.
An Anchor Steam clone (California common beer) is in the fermentor right now, and will be bottled this weekend.
Now I just need to figure out what to brew next in my cold basement. I’m certainly doing another fruity thing, like the cider, but with a mix of juices (frozen concentrates) from the market. Lemonade & some fruit additions or the like.
On the homebrewing side, I just kegged an Aventinus-style weizenbock that turned out pretty well. I used the Schneider yeast and will probably use that to brew a hefeweizen sometime soon.
On the pro side, we just released an Imperial IPA that, in my probably biased opinion, is one of the top 5 IIPAs in the country. I had a quite a bit to do with the recipe selection and was one of the brewers, so it is nice to see my baby out in the world. The reception has been amazing and I have only heard great things.
Where do I get it? Hell, I’ll drive up to Farmington, I’m not that far away. My favorite IIPAs are Dreadnaught, Goose Island Imperial, and Dogfish Head 90–it’s my favorite style of specialty beers, so I would LOVE to try some.
Hooray! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referred to this thread (and others) while doing my research into my new hobby/obsession. So far, I’ve started with Extract brewing with some specialty grains. I’ve even decided to set up a blog to chronicle my journeys into the world of homebrewing. I’m a little behind on updating it, but that’s okay. I had a choice about blogging about beer, or making more beer, and opted for making more.
I have done 2 batches so far. I started with an IPA, following simple directions that came in a pre-packaged (Brewer’s Best) kit. Although it’s a touch on the bitter side, I have to consider my first home-brewed batch a resounding success.
My second batch should be ready by Friday, which was the idea. It’s an Irish Stout, and the plan is to celebrate St. Patrick’s day by sharing it with my party goers. In fact, I’ll probably sample a bottle tonight just to make sure nothing disastrous happened.
If I can find the time this weekend, I’m going to start my third batch, which is going to be an toasted amber ale. Of course, that means I’ll be toasting some grains so I feel like it’s little bit closer to the advanced class. My plan is to start all-grain recipes when the weather warms up here in NY, so I can move some of the operation outside.
My ultimate goal is to perfect my own recipes and keg them so I can enjoy them on tap from my kegerator. I’m sure I’ll be seeking advice when that day comes.
Oh…August West, let’s have some info on how to get you IIPA. The local brewery here (Blue Point Brewing Company) has just come up with an Imperial IPA that they call “No Apologies.” It’s quite tasty, even if you should really only have a little at a time.
Our IIPA is, for the time being, only available on draft at bars in Milwaukee and Madison, WI. There is talk about bringing it back later this year and bottling it, but we are running into difficulties in acquiring enough hops for it.
There was a devastating fire earlier this year at a hops storage warehouse and it has dramatically affected the supply of some varieties, notably three of them that we use in the IIPA!
Anyone that wants to know more about the IIPA feel free to PM or email me and I’ll let you know where to find it. Maybe I should organize a Milwaukee Dopefest at one of the taverns where it’s available?
I’m fascinated by the thought of kegging cider, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough people coming over to drink it, and I don’t know how long it would last in a keg.
I’ll be bottling either this weekend, or the next. I won’t crack a bottle open for 2 weeks after that, to give it time to prime.
I just bottled a kolsch on friday. Unlike most of the brewers around here, hops and high alcohol content are my enemies, so I cut down the time that I boiled the hops. Hopefully this will reduce those yucky alpha acids that everybody in my area are so fond of. It will be a pretty light beer too. It has always been a goal of mine to brew a Bud Light clone ;). Unfortunately, my living conditions are not appropriate for lagers.
I have recently rediscovered lambics. I love lambics now. I bought a book on brewing with wild yeast, and when I get myself established I cannot wait to do a wild brew.
I meant to add, I was deciding whether or not I was going to brew something else today when I realized I still had a sample of old yeast I had pitched well over a year ago in the fridge.
I had taken the old yeast at the bottom of one of my fermentations and added it to a small wort. I then waited for it to start brewing and stuck it in the fridge to arrest the yeast. Then I went on a brewing hiatus and forgot about it. I looked at it today. The air-lock had gone dry, but there was a cap on it so it may be okay. It looks good. I took it out of the fridge and if it starts fermenting I’ll use this yeast to pitch my next batch.
I’ve got a sour-cherry porter hanging out in secondary right now, and a Blue Moon clone (which actually turned out to be more of a bruinbier than a witbier thanks to the darkening from doing a small extract boil) that I really need to rack to secondary.
I’ve just acquired a turkey fryer big enough to do a full boil, so I’m planning to start making a few batches of awful, awful all-grain beer for a while to figure out what the heck I’m doing pretty soon.
Allright, it’s been several hours out of the fridge warmed nicely, and my little wort has failed to show any signs of fermenting. i don’t mean heavy bubbling, buty by now I would expect a few cultures to develop on the surface. Either all the sugars are consumed or the yeast is dead. Screw it I say. There must be some dormant yeast at the bottom of that jug. Tommorrow I will put a wort together and dump the contents into it to see if i can resurect this culture. If after three days the fermentation is still stalled, I’ll go by some magic liquid yeast.
