Mead/Helles update

Just bought a new mechanical switch keyboard. I don't like the silly looking fonts on the keys but I like the way it feels. Nothing to do with homebrew but I using it for the first time now.

First of the strawberry mead doesn't not taste good. It ended up too dry. Wanna know what honey tastes like if you remove the delicious sugary stuff. Well, it tastes like crap. Note to self, don't coddle the yeast. Let them leave some sugar. I took a bottle over to Ellie's sister's place. I tried it. Illeana tried it. Lucy might have. Everyone agreed it was bad. Poole and his wife cam over one day after a trip to Kern River. His wife mentioned it tasted like bubble gum. I gave them a bottle. There are two gallons or so in the bottom of the bar area. I hope to forget about them for a long long time. Maybe they will improve. Although I think not.

Onto the Helles. In short it's going to end up too sweet. I overshot the gravity. That means that the bittering hops got all screwed up making it too sweet. Also, it make is not longer a helles since there is too much alcohol. It ended at 1.012 which is about 6-7% ABV. So I guess it is a helles bock. Or a blonde bock.

It was cool to see the lager age. As this is my first I've learned a lot. First, I set the chest freezer to 50F but the first few days the fermenter was likely 53F. I really need to make it cooler to account for the exothermic properties of the fermentation.

After two weeks I sampled the beer. There was a lot of DMS and I believe I detected some diacetyl. While I couldn't taste it, I felt a slick feeling on my tongue. After another week I upped the temp to 60F for a diacetyl rest. I sampled the beer at this point and I couldn't taste the diacetyl anymore but I figured I do the rest anyway. There was still a strong DMS presence.

After another week I moved the beer to the keg for lagering. I put it in the chest freezer at 34F. After another two weeks it was very drinkable. I gave some to Kevin, Ellie, Tuey, Jackie, and my dad. Everyone liked it. At this point the DMS character was beginning to subside and it tasted like a good MGD.

Now another week later the DMS has further subsided and is almost undetectable. Now all the flaws are out there. I can tell it is too sweet. Somehow the DMS covered up the flaws and made it more drinkable. So, a cleaner lager lends to more detection of beer flaws. For it is worth though I was going for a very clean lager. I love the Blonde Bock from Gordon Biersch. There are no beer esters in that beer. It shows me just how good these lagers can be if they are done right.

I think I might be able to make a good lager here. I need to get the gravity right. I need to control the fermentation better. Then I think we got something good.