First update is on my dreaded Trippel. I really didn't like. Didn't like how it looked, smelled, tasted, etc. Of course one man's yucky beer is acceptable to another. I busted this stuff out on Tuey and Kevin and they thought it was ok. I told Kevin if he liked so much he can take all of it home. So he did. And then he thanked me later. No Kevin, thank you for taking that beer away.
The birthday beer was banana beer. You would have swore I was hiding bananas somewhere in the chest freezer. I fermented that beer in primary for two weeks. I read that when it comes to those wheat beers you don't want to keep it primary all that long. We racked it into the keg and left it for another 10 days. That's when we started putting some CO2 pressure on and began to sample the beer. It was sweet. I thought maybe it needed more fermentation time so I didn't cool the keg until about three days before the party.
On party day I filled a glass and gave it try. It was banana beer. And it was sweet. Too sweet in my opinion. I think I needed more hops at the 60 min mark. I gave some to Ellie and her comment was "best beer you've ever made". Well, it's your birthday sweetheart. As long as you're happy I win. Now comes a point of contention between us. I'm not sure this beer is up to snuff enough that the party people will consume mass amounts of this beer. Ellie disagrees. She believes the five gallons of beer will be gone in under an hour. We've invited 30 or so people. That's a lot of people but they won't all show up in the first hour. I take this bet and when Kevin hears about it, he does all he can to help Ellie win this bet. He did good too. I would say he drank 2/3 of a gallon or so. Zach too. But, Ellie lost the bet. I even gave her another hour to be a sport. In the end though all the beer did get consumed. I was proud to hear comments here and there about how much people enjoyed the beer.
So what's next? I just bought the yeast and DME to make Apple cider. I think I will make it in the 1 gallon fermenter I have. It will take 6+ weeks to ferment and then a couple more weeks to carbonate. Ciders take a long time. But I wanted to make something that people like mom, Amanda, and grandma would like to drink.
Also, I bought my first 5 gallon all grain kit. So sometime this week I will need to get a mash container built up from a large cooler. Nick is coming for a visit this weekend and we are going to have some fun.
