Brewing Notes, Edwort's Apfelwein, 16mar2010

Made first batch of apfelwein from Edwort's easy recipe on homebrewtalk forums. Only adjustment I made was to add an additional gallon of apple juice since my carboy is 6 gallons (as opposed to a 5 gallon used in the recipe) and I didn't want alot of headspace.

OG came out a little lower at 1.061 as I only had 2 lbs. of corn sugar/dextrose (the ratio in the recipe would have call for ~2.4 lbs), but I think it will still be plenty strong and hopefully I will like the taste of this stuff, since I will have almost 6 gallons. I couldn't resist making it cause the process was so easy, and it needs to age quite a long time, so why not.

The only other thing is that when I bottle, i'll have to use two bottling buckets since they are only 5 gallons and I will have almost 6 gallons of the wine. But that will work out fine as I can do about 5 gallons sparkling in one bucket (via priming sugar solution), and then have the last gallon still (i.e. no priming sugar in that bucket).

I used Mott's apple juice (no preservatives accept ascorbic acid). I also used montrachet wine yeast that was 2 months past expiration, but I figure it will still be fine as it is dry yeast and has been in the freezer for the most part.

Bottling Notes, Irish Red, 15mar2008

Bottled up the Irish red today approximately 3 weeks and 2 days after brewing. It definately was somewhat cleared at this point, and smelled great! I bottled with ~11 tbsp of corn sugar (~3.7 oz) shooting for around 2.3 volumes CO2. Got about 51 x 12 oz bottles worth.

Of note: I used autosiphon for the first time today, it was pretty easy to use and actually let me leave alot of yeast sediment in the primary, which will improve my bottled beer by note having an ass ton of yeast in the bottle.

Final Stats on the Irish Red:

OG: 1.050

FG: 1.016

% Attenuation: 67%

% alcohol: 4.4%

Calories/12 oz: ~165

I'm stoked about this beer, I feel like i upgraded my process with the better temp control of a carboy, the smoother racking with the autosiphon (and leaving alot of sediment behind). I'm hoping that after about 3 weeks in the bottle, it will taste fanstastic and be nice and clear.

Fermentation Notes, Porter, 02mar2010

So things are slowing down on the porter, its close to ambient temp now. It got up to around 73F for a little bit while in the heat of things, but thats fine. I'll let this beer condition for 3+ weeks in primary before I bottle it up.

Fermentation Notes, Porter, 27feb2010

Well, I woke up the next day, and it doesn't appear like the yeast are getting a good start, no krausen, no "fermenty" smell, no bubbles, etc.... I'm pretty sure that this is because I pitched them too cold (~58F) due to overcooling the wort, and with this being a very flocculant yeast, they probably just said F this, i'm going back to sleep and sank to the bottom to hibernate. So at this point, the fermenter is up to a more reasonable 66F, so I decided to shake up the fermenting bucket, rehydrate a slightly expired (but have been in freezer for most of storage time) packet of the same s-04 ale yeast, and repitch another set of yeast (about 12 hours after the first). One thing of note was that this packet, despite being older than the other really seemed to be more alive during the rehyrdation process, they were foaming up and bubbling in the water and whatnot. I'm not sure if this is any indication as to the viability of this packet vs. the first packet (which should have been fine), but anyways, in they went, and hopefully they will find the warmer environment more appealing than their hibernating friends, maybe they will even wake them up and get them into the mix, who knows.

So the lesson from this story, when you put your ice in the sink to cool your wort, make sure to put the stopper in the sink drain as you fill it with water, otherwise your ice melts down the drain and you have no clue how much new ice to put back into the sink. In my case, I put too much, and overcooled the wort (as it goes for my process of adding it to 3 gallons of cold water in the fermenter).

I hope to return from school to a nice brewery smell in my upstairs bathroom.

Update: Fermentation has started within 4 hours of repitching as evidenced by bubbling in airlock (also nice to know that my new fermentation bucket lid/grommet is actually air tight unlike the old one). The temp is up to 68F. So this means either the original yeast just needed to be roused up by shaking the fermenter around, they needed things a little warmer, the repitched yeast have already got it going, or some combination of the above things are occurring. I guess all that matters is that some yeast are alive and hungry, so all is well ..... feast bitches. I suppose if both pitchings of yeast get active now, this might be a pretty rapid fermentation as it it would translate to somewhat of an overpitching with 2 packets of dry yeast in ~5 gallons of 1.051 wort, but I don't think it will be excessive, the final product might just be a little less estery in flavor than a single packet would have been.

Brewing Notes, Porter, 26feb2010

Brewed up a porter today. I accidentally used too much ice in ice bath when cooling it, so I ended up attemperating the yeast to and pitching into 58 degree wort. Hopefully the yeast will stay in suspension and as the fermenter warms up, they will get goin. If not, I'll sanitize a ladle and stir them up.

6 pounds Dark LME

.5 pound carapils

.5 pound chocolate

1 oz willamette 60

1 oz fuggles 1

1 packet safale so-4, rehydrated

Fermentation Notes, Irish Red, 21feb2010

Its cool to be able to see whats goin on in the fermenter :)

Sunday afternoon, 18 hours later, the beer is fermenting along nicely, with a foam cap on top, bubbling into the blow off mug (not sure when it started fermenting, anywhere from 4-18 hours while I was gone). Using two wet t-shirts to keep it around 66-68F. This works alot better with the carboy than the buckets. I have it hooked up with a blow off hose for now, will switch to a airlock after fermentation slows down.

Brewing Notes, Irish Red, 21feb2010

Brewed up an Irish Red today, northern brewer's kit + 5 oz. of maltodextrin (15 min) to beef up the body.

First time fermenting in a carboy.

OG came out at 1.049.

Pitched 1 packet rehydrated Nottingham into 65 F wort.