Zythos Tasting Notes

Kegged the Zythos on Tuesday. The idea was that on Thursday the poker boys would be over and I could use them as taste testers. On Wednesday Ellie and I tried it and it was good. A little too bitter but it had a malty profile and a great mouthfeel. I think I have nailed the water issue for IPAs.

This beer was fermented cold. I put it in the spare bathroom and left the window open. It fermented at around 62F and after a couple of weeks the OG was 1.020. I thought I could get it a little lower so I swirled the yeast back into suspension and moved the fermenter inside the house to warm up a little. After another four/five days is dropped to 1.015. It was dry hopped for 5 days. I think it could do with a little more dry hopping. Ellie suggested halving the beer into one of the kegs and adding some more hops. That's a good idea!

So, the poker boys drank the beer and it got them drunk. I can't think of anytime in poker history where we got that drunk that fast. It was bad enough that we had a hard time playing poker. The consensus was that the beer was good. I agree. It is.

Kegged Cider Still Ferments

So my hope was that the kegged cider would no longer ferment in the cold temp of the chest freezer. I set the temp to 42F (pretty cold for ales). And for the first week the cider was a little sweet. The second week it hit a sweet spot and tasted great. I thought this was due to aging. But as it turns out, the yeast continued to ferment the added apple juice. Very slowly. Now it has almost completely dried out and has a tart character to it.

The lesson here is that cold yeast will still ferment just very slowly. All of them will not floc out due to coldness, nor will all of them go dormant.