Any homebrewers out there? Let us know what's currently fermenting in the pot.
Mother's in the kitchen washing out the jugs,
Sister's in the pantry bottling the suds,
Father's in the cellar mixin' up the hops,
Johnny's on the front porch watchin' for the cops.
Yes. Tough to brew when you're out of town 3 weekends out of 4.
HopMan, quick, to The Mobile Brewing Lab!
To the Brew Cave! Use the Brew Poles!
Look out for our arch-nemesis, Unsanitari Lee and his henchman, Oxidai Chan!
<groan>
Brewing photos from last night's double batch session!
Punk Little Brother
Me with specialty grains
Steeping the specialty grains
Almost boiling
what's in the bag - hops ?
Grains. We did use whole hops, but put them in loose.
<edit> I went back and labelled the photos.
Fermentables
Punk little brother, stirring
Me, cleaning
Double!
Close up of the wort with fresh hops
Cooling the wort
Into the primary fermenter
Adding yeast to the aerated wort
question - when you say "fermentables" - what exactly is that (malt) ?
I thought the sugars from the grains is what the yeast uses to ferment
Yes indeed. The stuff in the photo is malt extract, which contains the sugars from the grains that the yeast will use. It's just processed. We don't do all-grain brewing, though it may be on the horizon.
and please pardon the newbie questions - i know precious few details about the brewing process
ah, ok. thanks. so what kind of specialty grains did you use this time ? and do you use it to just alter the flavor (slightly) of the processed malt ?
I guess the most common grain would be a 2 row barley malt, correct ?
Yes, that's pretty common. That would be more in the extract, and I don't honestly know what type of grain was in the extract.
The specialty grains are used as additions for color and flavor, as you state. Both batches had the following for specialty grains:
Crisp Chocolate malt and
Simpsons Dark Crystal malt
The porter had 1/2 pound of each, and the winter warmer had 3/4 pound of Simpsons and 1/4 pound of the chocolate.
I'm trying an experiment tonight. The Winter Warmer is going to be transferred to secondary tonight. But, I'm currently brewing a Scottish Wee Heavy. I'm going to leave the yeast from the warmer in the same primary container and reuse it. Once the Wee Heavy is finished with the boil and has cooled, I'm just going to pour it right onto the old yeast and see what happens. From what I've read, it should work.
Best wishes on a succesful experiment, o Mad Scientist/Brewer!
I'm feeling verry paranoid. It's been 15 hours and no activity so far.
Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew.
Heh.
It's working! Bubbles as of this morning when I woke up. Not as fast as I would have liked, but what the hey.
This one's got stamina. It's still bubbling steadily, if not as frequently.
So now I've got a spare smack-pack of Scottish yeast. Gotta find a recipe to use it in.
Man, what a trial for you. :P
Didn't they have a kit for a Scottish Wee Heavy at the Brew shop? You could get the grains & malt, away you go!
You bloated sack of protoplasm! That's what I'm brewing now. However, I didn't use the yeast that came with the kit, since I reused the yeast that was in the primary from the Winter Warmer.
Whoops. Memory like a sieve.
I mean, I knew that! I's just testing you, eh!
Maybe you could make a bloated Haggis.
Good name for a beer. Now you need to come up with a recipe.
or maybe a rock-n-roll band - Bloated Haggis.
This weekend, I made a flag porter knockoff from grain.
Fermentation started (well, at least apparent) today.
Flag porter, is that a local brew?
Nope. Elgood & Sons, Wisbech, UK.
Here's the recipe for partial mash:
1/2# 55L British crystal
6 oz British brown malt
5 oz British choc. malt
(steep 150 for 20 min)
then
6# M&F light DME
1.4 oz East Kent Golding @5.5 AA (60 min)
1/2 oz Fuggles (15 min) w/ 1 t. Irish moss
Pitch with Wyeast 1084 or 1098.
Prime w/ 1.25c M&F light DME.
For what it's worth, I must recommend the book CLONEBREWS by "Szamatulski."
Thanks Andy!
We're on pins and needles, wondering if you managed the time.
Sparky and I bottled the Winter Warmer last night, and then I bottled the Scottish Wee Heavy after he went home. I had to look on the website to remind myself what the second batch was. I'm getting forgetful in my old age.
Scotch Silly went in the primary yesterday...
It's a scotch ale/belgian hybrid. As I was getting the ingredients the other day, the guy helping me commented, "Dude, that is one big beer."
Character grains:
14 oz. 55L British crystal
4 oz. whiskey malt or peated malt
6 oz. aromatic Belgian malt
(150 deg. for 20 min in 1 gal water. Sparge grains to 1.5 gal. Remove 4 c. of this extract and caramelize it in a separate pan. Return to the mixture & boil.)
At boil:
9# M&F DME (yes, that's 3 3# bags. This shit *will* boil over if you're not careful.)
1/3# clear Belgian candi
2 oz. glucose syrup (I used more Belgian candi)
1.5 oz. Kent Goldings
Bring up to 2.5 gal
.5 oz Goldings @45 min + 1 t Irish moss
.5 oz Goldings @5 min
Bring to 5 gal & pitch Irish Ale yeast or Belgian Abbey yeast. Good idea to make a starter, since this wort is super-fermentable.
(My pot did boil over at one point, and this stuff is sticky sticky sticky to clean up. It's a nice dark red color, with smoky notes. I used an Irish Stout yeast, which should add a nice diacetyl flavor & yield about 8.5% ABV.)
Gallopin' Gastronomy, Axelman! This sounds positively diabolically wonderful.
Yepper. I (heart) me some Belgian ales.
Nice work on that Andy. Thanks for sharing. I only wish I could be around for the sharing when it's ready.
How hard is it to send beer through the mail? I might be convinced to trade a growler...