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.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
First Helles
Well it's been awhile since I've brewed beer. I've spent most my free time with my wife. She's got the cancer. All seems to be going well though. I drank some Sam Adams Alpine Spring which is a seasonal brew for them and got inspired to brew to lager. A light lager. Which is the most difficult beer to brew. It will be a true test of my brewing skill.
I stopped by More Beer in Riverside on the way to see Ellie who is now staying with her sister in Lake Forest. It took forever to get to it. The damn bridge just goes over the shop with no apparent way to get at it. Eventually I pulled over and looked at the More Beer website and found directions to get to the shop. Obviously I wasn't the only retard since they made a special note to give directions on the website. I got there just as it was closing. I've never helped myself to the gain before so I was a little leery. But they were cool and helped me out. The one guy stayed just a little let to help check me out. He was very friendly and we had nice chat about nothingness. He even gave me free hop candy. It was good. So here's the ingredients:
12.5 lbs German Pilsner
1lb Vienna
2oz Hallertau Mittlefruh 3.2% AA
Two vials WLP830. Date = June 16, 2012. Lot number = 1830PCC8378381 for both vials.
Servomyces.
Whirlfloc.
I intend to mash at 153F. We'll see.
Last night I made a starter. A large one. We need large starters for lagers. I made a 1.8L starter. Largest I ever made. I put it on the stir plate and it's been going on for 20 or so hours. The starter looks very active. It has a large krausen already.
One note was that the lager yeast is the first yeast I've smelt that actually smells like beer. All the ale yeasts that I've open up and smelled smell like a slightly sour yeasty smell but no "beer" smells.
3:43pm. Everything is cleaned and ready to go. Heating up the strike water now. Already hit our first snag of the day. The propane tank emptied. That's cool though. I thought ahead. Already got another one. I hooked it up and couldn't get it to give me some gas. I had to screw it in pretty tight and then it went. But for a few seconds I thought I was going to have to go and get another propane tank. Currently drinking my first Sam Adams Alpine Spring. Had breakfast/lunch at Midway Cafe. Got a sandwich from Albertson's and some chips. I'm ready. Let's do this.
4:06pm. Mashing. Seems to be going well. Beer Smith told me to get up to 170F for mashing. I put in about 4.2 gallons into the tun. The water was a little warmer at 172F. This is to account for the loss in temp in transferring from the pot to the tun. Once I got in the mash tun I threw a thermometer in and left for a few minutes. The temp was then measured at 167F. Looking back at Beer Smith, I changed the mash tun temp to 150 and and the mash water temp should be at 167F so I thought I was right on. I put the grains in and stirred it up and hit the mash temp of 153F. Nice! I took the pH of the mash and it looked a little high. I then added the 5.2 and sure enough it dropped the pH to what looks like 5.2. I took a pic of this if I get around to it it will be posted below. So all seems well for now. I think I'll clean the brewery up a little while a wait for the grains to mash.
4:27pm. Done cleaning stuff. Guess I'll surf the internets.
4:32pm. My iPod shuffle appears to have died. Probably just out of battery. :(
4:46pm. Did I mention I'm on my second Sam Adams. Guess it's about time to heat the water. I'm going to try and add 2 gallons boiling water to the mash to raise up the temp and then vorlof and batch sparge. Let's see if that improves efficiency a little.
4:52pm. Shuffle seems fine now. I plugged it into the computer and it came up green. Plugged it in and turned it on. All seems well. It's such a beautiful day today. 74F right now. Clear. Slight breeze. Which everyday was like this. Wish Ellie was here enjoying a beer with me in the nice weather. She actually wanted a beer Friday. She saw people drinking on TV. She likes lagers. Before we got into craft beer she drank Corona like a boss. Two at a time. With lime and salt. I told her that she can have some of this Helles when its ready in a couple of months. Also, I wanted to note that I labeled it a Helles because it fit the style according to Beer Smith. It thought the ABV was high but since I have terrible efficiency I'll probably be right there.
5:29pm. Ok I added 2 gallons of 200F water to the mash tun and stirred it up. This got us to 164ish. I did a vorlof, and then opened the spigot and got like 3ish gallons. So, I added two gallons and change to the mash tun and am letting it set for a bit. I checked the gravity of the first runnings and it measured 1.068.
6:02pm. Sparge done. We got a lot of sugar. Pre-boil gravity 1.052 before adding third sparge (about 2/3 of a gallon). That's what Beer Smith says I should get with 60% efficiency. I should get an OG of 1.60ish. Which is a little much but we will roll with it. I did get about 7 gallons of wort. I did three sparges. I've left quite a bit of sugar still in the mash tun. I measured a gravity of 1.030 when emptying the mash tun. I want it to be more like 1.012ish. I guess I suck at efficiency and I have begun to just accept it. All in all I'm very happy with how things are turning out.
For the future it seems to be a good idea to add the two gallons of boiling for the first runnings. I would make the second runnings about 3-4 gallons and make it 185F.
6:24pm. Hot break done. Hops added. We'll call it 6:23 is the 60min mark. The malt looks and smells great. It smells better then the 2row I'm used to. Also, the hops are good. Not too bitter. Kind of earthy but too much so. When I added it to the boil kettle it smelled wonderful.
6:53pm. Mash tun cleaned. Made a mess. Ate my sandwich too. It was turkey. It was good. Got to clean the mess. On my third beer.
8:02pm. Wort is cooling. Currently at 82F. Need to figure out a way to cool faster. On my 5th beer now.
8:19pm. Wort almost done. Will siphon soon. Getting tired but still need to clean up after this. Shuffle died again. It is charging. Looking forward to kicking back with last beer and calling wife.
Took sample and measured with hydrometer. It measures at 1.060. It tasted wonderful. Be wort ever. Not bitter. Sweet and lovely.
9:22pm. All is cleaned. Brew day done. It was a good brew day. Would have been perfect if E was here. :(
I stopped by More Beer in Riverside on the way to see Ellie who is now staying with her sister in Lake Forest. It took forever to get to it. The damn bridge just goes over the shop with no apparent way to get at it. Eventually I pulled over and looked at the More Beer website and found directions to get to the shop. Obviously I wasn't the only retard since they made a special note to give directions on the website. I got there just as it was closing. I've never helped myself to the gain before so I was a little leery. But they were cool and helped me out. The one guy stayed just a little let to help check me out. He was very friendly and we had nice chat about nothingness. He even gave me free hop candy. It was good. So here's the ingredients:
12.5 lbs German Pilsner
1lb Vienna
2oz Hallertau Mittlefruh 3.2% AA
Two vials WLP830. Date = June 16, 2012. Lot number = 1830PCC8378381 for both vials.
Servomyces.
Whirlfloc.
I intend to mash at 153F. We'll see.
Last night I made a starter. A large one. We need large starters for lagers. I made a 1.8L starter. Largest I ever made. I put it on the stir plate and it's been going on for 20 or so hours. The starter looks very active. It has a large krausen already.
One note was that the lager yeast is the first yeast I've smelt that actually smells like beer. All the ale yeasts that I've open up and smelled smell like a slightly sour yeasty smell but no "beer" smells.
3:43pm. Everything is cleaned and ready to go. Heating up the strike water now. Already hit our first snag of the day. The propane tank emptied. That's cool though. I thought ahead. Already got another one. I hooked it up and couldn't get it to give me some gas. I had to screw it in pretty tight and then it went. But for a few seconds I thought I was going to have to go and get another propane tank. Currently drinking my first Sam Adams Alpine Spring. Had breakfast/lunch at Midway Cafe. Got a sandwich from Albertson's and some chips. I'm ready. Let's do this.
4:06pm. Mashing. Seems to be going well. Beer Smith told me to get up to 170F for mashing. I put in about 4.2 gallons into the tun. The water was a little warmer at 172F. This is to account for the loss in temp in transferring from the pot to the tun. Once I got in the mash tun I threw a thermometer in and left for a few minutes. The temp was then measured at 167F. Looking back at Beer Smith, I changed the mash tun temp to 150 and and the mash water temp should be at 167F so I thought I was right on. I put the grains in and stirred it up and hit the mash temp of 153F. Nice! I took the pH of the mash and it looked a little high. I then added the 5.2 and sure enough it dropped the pH to what looks like 5.2. I took a pic of this if I get around to it it will be posted below. So all seems well for now. I think I'll clean the brewery up a little while a wait for the grains to mash.
4:27pm. Done cleaning stuff. Guess I'll surf the internets.
4:32pm. My iPod shuffle appears to have died. Probably just out of battery. :(
4:46pm. Did I mention I'm on my second Sam Adams. Guess it's about time to heat the water. I'm going to try and add 2 gallons boiling water to the mash to raise up the temp and then vorlof and batch sparge. Let's see if that improves efficiency a little.
4:52pm. Shuffle seems fine now. I plugged it into the computer and it came up green. Plugged it in and turned it on. All seems well. It's such a beautiful day today. 74F right now. Clear. Slight breeze. Which everyday was like this. Wish Ellie was here enjoying a beer with me in the nice weather. She actually wanted a beer Friday. She saw people drinking on TV. She likes lagers. Before we got into craft beer she drank Corona like a boss. Two at a time. With lime and salt. I told her that she can have some of this Helles when its ready in a couple of months. Also, I wanted to note that I labeled it a Helles because it fit the style according to Beer Smith. It thought the ABV was high but since I have terrible efficiency I'll probably be right there.
5:29pm. Ok I added 2 gallons of 200F water to the mash tun and stirred it up. This got us to 164ish. I did a vorlof, and then opened the spigot and got like 3ish gallons. So, I added two gallons and change to the mash tun and am letting it set for a bit. I checked the gravity of the first runnings and it measured 1.068.
6:02pm. Sparge done. We got a lot of sugar. Pre-boil gravity 1.052 before adding third sparge (about 2/3 of a gallon). That's what Beer Smith says I should get with 60% efficiency. I should get an OG of 1.60ish. Which is a little much but we will roll with it. I did get about 7 gallons of wort. I did three sparges. I've left quite a bit of sugar still in the mash tun. I measured a gravity of 1.030 when emptying the mash tun. I want it to be more like 1.012ish. I guess I suck at efficiency and I have begun to just accept it. All in all I'm very happy with how things are turning out.
For the future it seems to be a good idea to add the two gallons of boiling for the first runnings. I would make the second runnings about 3-4 gallons and make it 185F.
6:24pm. Hot break done. Hops added. We'll call it 6:23 is the 60min mark. The malt looks and smells great. It smells better then the 2row I'm used to. Also, the hops are good. Not too bitter. Kind of earthy but too much so. When I added it to the boil kettle it smelled wonderful.
6:53pm. Mash tun cleaned. Made a mess. Ate my sandwich too. It was turkey. It was good. Got to clean the mess. On my third beer.
8:02pm. Wort is cooling. Currently at 82F. Need to figure out a way to cool faster. On my 5th beer now.
8:19pm. Wort almost done. Will siphon soon. Getting tired but still need to clean up after this. Shuffle died again. It is charging. Looking forward to kicking back with last beer and calling wife.
Took sample and measured with hydrometer. It measures at 1.060. It tasted wonderful. Be wort ever. Not bitter. Sweet and lovely.
9:22pm. All is cleaned. Brew day done. It was a good brew day. Would have been perfect if E was here. :(
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Mead Mead and EKA II
Yesterday I transferred the strawberry mead to a glass fermenter. I got two glass fermenter from a plant/homebrew store in Hisperia. It was a little weird. Anyhow, I transferred it over to the glass and what I noticed was the auto siphon didn't work too well towards the end. The consistency of what remained was sludgy and thick. So I left it in. This appeared to give me like three gallons (maybe less) of mead. It tastes pretty good. I had a sample of it the night before with Kevin and Jim. It has serious potential. Just needs to age.
One alloying thing about the glass is that it is slippery when wet. This means I can't shove a stopper into the thing without it popping out. I said screw it and put a silicon hood on the thing and called it good. I need to be very careful with the glass. You can google up some pics of homebrewers sending themselves to the ER with these glass carboys. I guess the thing is that when you know the carboy is going down, just let it go. If you try to grab it, you will get cut. Just let it go. We can make more mead/beer.
The other thing I did was bottle EKA I from the keg. I filled 5 bombers. I then cleaned that keg and filled it with EKA II. I force carbed it and put it in the chest fridge. Jim sampled it yesterday and said it tasted a little sweet. When I drew the sample from the fermenter it was very clear. I drinking it now. There is a bitterness that is mild but clingy. It clings to the sides of my tongue. It does taste a little sweet. It much darker than any EKA. It does have more body. It has a nice white head. There is good lacing on the glass. The esters are mild but there is some there. It fermented cool which is likely why there are little esters and why it is so clear. There is no hops in the nose. But you can smell the maltiness and esters. If we had this beer with a little Amarillo hops in the nose we would have a winner.
Ellie would like this beer.
Also last night I brought over a glass carboy to Kevin's place and we transferred his mead. The gravity measured 1.000 which made me sad. I was hoping for a sweet mead. I think the lesson here is that for a sweet mead you shouldn't use any nutrients. I made a sad face and it discouraged Kevin.
I brought the rubber stopper which we attached his air lock to. And it wouldn't stay in the freaking glass bottle. So we duct taped that shit down. Oh yeah.
Also, I ate one of the oranges from his fermenter. It was boozy.
If you're reading this wife I love you. I'm sorry I snapped at you about the TV shows.
One alloying thing about the glass is that it is slippery when wet. This means I can't shove a stopper into the thing without it popping out. I said screw it and put a silicon hood on the thing and called it good. I need to be very careful with the glass. You can google up some pics of homebrewers sending themselves to the ER with these glass carboys. I guess the thing is that when you know the carboy is going down, just let it go. If you try to grab it, you will get cut. Just let it go. We can make more mead/beer.
The other thing I did was bottle EKA I from the keg. I filled 5 bombers. I then cleaned that keg and filled it with EKA II. I force carbed it and put it in the chest fridge. Jim sampled it yesterday and said it tasted a little sweet. When I drew the sample from the fermenter it was very clear. I drinking it now. There is a bitterness that is mild but clingy. It clings to the sides of my tongue. It does taste a little sweet. It much darker than any EKA. It does have more body. It has a nice white head. There is good lacing on the glass. The esters are mild but there is some there. It fermented cool which is likely why there are little esters and why it is so clear. There is no hops in the nose. But you can smell the maltiness and esters. If we had this beer with a little Amarillo hops in the nose we would have a winner.
Ellie would like this beer.
Also last night I brought over a glass carboy to Kevin's place and we transferred his mead. The gravity measured 1.000 which made me sad. I was hoping for a sweet mead. I think the lesson here is that for a sweet mead you shouldn't use any nutrients. I made a sad face and it discouraged Kevin.
I brought the rubber stopper which we attached his air lock to. And it wouldn't stay in the freaking glass bottle. So we duct taped that shit down. Oh yeah.
Also, I ate one of the oranges from his fermenter. It was boozy.
If you're reading this wife I love you. I'm sorry I snapped at you about the TV shows.
Friday, February 10, 2012
More Tasting Notes
OK. First let's start with Elf King Ale I. I find it to be too light in body. I know I labeled it Elf King Ale Lite but it is too light. The first time I tried it it tasted to me like watered down beer. But the hops is awesome. Amarillo for the win. I should defiantly roll with it more in the future. It also has some fruity ester type flavor in it but not as much as before. Ellie drank a bunch of this with me during Super Bowl. It was awesome.
Janet's Brown Ale. The first week the best this beer was. That's because the dry hops shown through. After that the dry hops went away and I was left with a slightly bitter beer. The bitterness is an aftertaste that lingers on the tongue far too long. It has a nice mouth feel and malty taste. There are coffee type notes in the beer.
Elf King Ale II. Just sampled some from the fermenter after a week and I think it's going to be great. No fruity esters. No strong hop aroma or taste. Not overly bitter. Should be a very nice and balanced beer. It will have a slightly darker appearance and more robust body. I think this beer with Amarillo would KILL. Looking forward to drinking this. Also this was the first beer that used harvested yeast from Elf King Ale I. It took 24 hours before signs of fermentation but then really took off. I think the yeast was acclimating to the new environment. In the future I should make a starter to get the yeast alive and going from a harvest.
Strawberry mead. This didn't come out how I wanted. I was looking for a semi-sweet mead. I took very good care of this yeast and nourished it for a week (mead has little nutrients for yeast). And by golly it did it's job. I guess I nourished it too well. I wanted it to give up at some point. But it fermented nearly all the sugar in the mead. As a result, the mead now has no residual sweet flavor. It tastes close to wine. Ellie pegged it as a strawberry honey champagne. That's a good description. Very dry. Almost too dry. It is now at 13% ABV. You can taste the alcohol. It has that "hot" alcohol taste to it. I think the annoying parts of this mead will mellow in time (it's only a week old). Primary fermentation is complete. It now need time to age and improve.
Janet's Brown Ale. The first week the best this beer was. That's because the dry hops shown through. After that the dry hops went away and I was left with a slightly bitter beer. The bitterness is an aftertaste that lingers on the tongue far too long. It has a nice mouth feel and malty taste. There are coffee type notes in the beer.
Elf King Ale II. Just sampled some from the fermenter after a week and I think it's going to be great. No fruity esters. No strong hop aroma or taste. Not overly bitter. Should be a very nice and balanced beer. It will have a slightly darker appearance and more robust body. I think this beer with Amarillo would KILL. Looking forward to drinking this. Also this was the first beer that used harvested yeast from Elf King Ale I. It took 24 hours before signs of fermentation but then really took off. I think the yeast was acclimating to the new environment. In the future I should make a starter to get the yeast alive and going from a harvest.
Strawberry mead. This didn't come out how I wanted. I was looking for a semi-sweet mead. I took very good care of this yeast and nourished it for a week (mead has little nutrients for yeast). And by golly it did it's job. I guess I nourished it too well. I wanted it to give up at some point. But it fermented nearly all the sugar in the mead. As a result, the mead now has no residual sweet flavor. It tastes close to wine. Ellie pegged it as a strawberry honey champagne. That's a good description. Very dry. Almost too dry. It is now at 13% ABV. You can taste the alcohol. It has that "hot" alcohol taste to it. I think the annoying parts of this mead will mellow in time (it's only a week old). Primary fermentation is complete. It now need time to age and improve.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Elf King Ale II
My second official Elf King Ale. I've made some changes. Added more grain. And I changed the crystal 15L to crystal 40L. This should give the beer more body and color. I also changed the flavour hops at the end to Centennial since I couldn't get Amarillo. So, far I have tried Amarillo and Cascade. I like Amarillo better.
Recipe:
10lbs 2 row
1 lbs Crystal 40L
0.75oz Magnum 14.4 AA at 60 min
1oz Centennial 10.3AA at 5min
1oz Centennial 8.9AA at 1min
WLP001 - was harvested from the last batch.
Whirlfloc, servomyces
I needed to attempts to get my strike water temp correct. During the first attempt I added too much cold water. On the second attempt I got it to 165 which is where I wanted it.
After I got done adding grain, 5.2, checking PH, etc. the mash temp is 150F. I wanted 153F. When I first doughed in it was 155F so I thought I was the man. It appears I am not the man. So I will need to rely on the crystal 40L grain to give the beer body.
Also, I ran into a problem. I have two glass thermometers which are 10 degrees off. The new one that floats is 10 degrees higher than my old standby. I need yet another glass thermometer to resolve the issue. I can't be 10 degrees off in the mash. Either I right as of now or I'm off as of now. The beer seems fine lately so I'm not going to sweat it.
I wanted to see if the pH really does change with the 5.2 so I bought some pH strips. About 5mins after dough in I measured the mash at 5.5-5.8. It does appear different after the 5.2. I did seems to change the pH and make the mash more acidic. I'm not sure it is at 5.2 right now. But I will check when the mash is over.
Just did my first runnings. Forgot to check the pH before I emptied the first runnings. Next time.
Batch sparging today. Did one already. While waiting for the sparge water to heat up I did a little experiment where I let the remaining water in my hot liquor tank heat to boil. The new thermometer measured 200F. The old standby measured 211ish. It's 212 says the internets. At least now I know.
Pre-boil gravity is 1.030. I let it boil for about 15 minutes before putting in the first hops.
OG is 1.048. That is terrible efficiency. Perhaps I should add 2 gallons of boiling water at mash out. Then just have one batch sparge. I've got to get some consistency on this. It's driving me crazy.
Recipe:
10lbs 2 row
1 lbs Crystal 40L
0.75oz Magnum 14.4 AA at 60 min
1oz Centennial 10.3AA at 5min
1oz Centennial 8.9AA at 1min
WLP001 - was harvested from the last batch.
Whirlfloc, servomyces
I needed to attempts to get my strike water temp correct. During the first attempt I added too much cold water. On the second attempt I got it to 165 which is where I wanted it.
After I got done adding grain, 5.2, checking PH, etc. the mash temp is 150F. I wanted 153F. When I first doughed in it was 155F so I thought I was the man. It appears I am not the man. So I will need to rely on the crystal 40L grain to give the beer body.
Also, I ran into a problem. I have two glass thermometers which are 10 degrees off. The new one that floats is 10 degrees higher than my old standby. I need yet another glass thermometer to resolve the issue. I can't be 10 degrees off in the mash. Either I right as of now or I'm off as of now. The beer seems fine lately so I'm not going to sweat it.
I wanted to see if the pH really does change with the 5.2 so I bought some pH strips. About 5mins after dough in I measured the mash at 5.5-5.8. It does appear different after the 5.2. I did seems to change the pH and make the mash more acidic. I'm not sure it is at 5.2 right now. But I will check when the mash is over.
Just did my first runnings. Forgot to check the pH before I emptied the first runnings. Next time.
Batch sparging today. Did one already. While waiting for the sparge water to heat up I did a little experiment where I let the remaining water in my hot liquor tank heat to boil. The new thermometer measured 200F. The old standby measured 211ish. It's 212 says the internets. At least now I know.
Pre-boil gravity is 1.030. I let it boil for about 15 minutes before putting in the first hops.
OG is 1.048. That is terrible efficiency. Perhaps I should add 2 gallons of boiling water at mash out. Then just have one batch sparge. I've got to get some consistency on this. It's driving me crazy.
Strawberry Mead
Double brew day today. Brewing mead and beer.
When Kevin bought the honey from Fillmore, he bought too much. All I had to do was buy a little more and then we got enough for two batches of mead. Ellie likes strawberries. So I figure what the hell I'll make her some strawberry mead. The first adventure was finding strawberries. She had been eating these ones from the store for the last week and I thought they were bitter. I didn't want to be forced to use those strawberries. But then we found some poor guy sitting on the side of the road and he had a bunch. Ellie gets out and speaks the talk of her people and haggles the guy to $32 for 12lbs of strawberries. I gave him $35. Oops.
Anyhow now we got the berries it's time to cut them up which Ellie did. She cut them into eights and put them into a bucket of StarSan. I re-hydrated some wine yeast. I got 71B-1122 from MoreBeer. Two packets. That's 16 grams. Probably a little too much but that is better than too little since honey lacks nutrients for the yeast. The water I rehydrated in was luke warm water and I added 20grams of Go-Ferm nutrients. This seemed like a lot. I triple checked. Maybe I'm crazy, I don't know.
I got the fermenter ready to go and transferred the berries to the fermenter.
I began to heat the water when Ellie comes along to help pour in the honey. It's heavy and will sit on the bottom and scorch unless someone stirs it up. So we got that honey out of their containers and checked the gravity. Ellie had fun with the new refractometer. If measured at 1.115. Although it looked like distilled water measured in at 1.005. So I would say the gravity was 1.11. Nice!
Afterwards it was heated to 170 for 15min and then I cooled it like I did with Kevin's mead. I then transferred it to the fermenter and shook it up. I then went to add O2 and found that when I had sterilized the oxygen stone earlier in the day I melted a little bit of the rubber tubing which caused the O2 to rush out before it hit the stone. So I taped it up with plumbers tape and it seemed to work. I'll need to replace it next time.
Then I added the yeast nutrients (Ferm-K and DAP). And then I added the yeast. I then shook it all up and it now sits in the bar area.
BTW, those strawberries were wonderful. They looked great. Tasted good too.
When Kevin bought the honey from Fillmore, he bought too much. All I had to do was buy a little more and then we got enough for two batches of mead. Ellie likes strawberries. So I figure what the hell I'll make her some strawberry mead. The first adventure was finding strawberries. She had been eating these ones from the store for the last week and I thought they were bitter. I didn't want to be forced to use those strawberries. But then we found some poor guy sitting on the side of the road and he had a bunch. Ellie gets out and speaks the talk of her people and haggles the guy to $32 for 12lbs of strawberries. I gave him $35. Oops.
Anyhow now we got the berries it's time to cut them up which Ellie did. She cut them into eights and put them into a bucket of StarSan. I re-hydrated some wine yeast. I got 71B-1122 from MoreBeer. Two packets. That's 16 grams. Probably a little too much but that is better than too little since honey lacks nutrients for the yeast. The water I rehydrated in was luke warm water and I added 20grams of Go-Ferm nutrients. This seemed like a lot. I triple checked. Maybe I'm crazy, I don't know.
I got the fermenter ready to go and transferred the berries to the fermenter.
I began to heat the water when Ellie comes along to help pour in the honey. It's heavy and will sit on the bottom and scorch unless someone stirs it up. So we got that honey out of their containers and checked the gravity. Ellie had fun with the new refractometer. If measured at 1.115. Although it looked like distilled water measured in at 1.005. So I would say the gravity was 1.11. Nice!
Afterwards it was heated to 170 for 15min and then I cooled it like I did with Kevin's mead. I then transferred it to the fermenter and shook it up. I then went to add O2 and found that when I had sterilized the oxygen stone earlier in the day I melted a little bit of the rubber tubing which caused the O2 to rush out before it hit the stone. So I taped it up with plumbers tape and it seemed to work. I'll need to replace it next time.
Then I added the yeast nutrients (Ferm-K and DAP). And then I added the yeast. I then shook it all up and it now sits in the bar area.
BTW, those strawberries were wonderful. They looked great. Tasted good too.
Kevin's Mead
Kevin and I made mead last weekend. We made a 5 gallon batch. We used 15lbs of orange honey from Fillmore. We mixed up the water and honey and warmed it to 160F for 15 minutes. We then cooled the batch and poured it into his bucket.
We then oxygenated it for two minutes and added the yeast nutrients. Then we added 5 oranges and what two drunks think 100 raisins look like. The oranges were cut into 8ths. I made sure to sanitize everything.
We added the yeast and I dumped the stir bar into the bucket. I was going to say forget it but Kevin made me feel like we should get it. So I sprayed my arm with StarSan and went in there after it.
Kevin left with the mead and I gave him the nutrients with instructions to add half in two days and the other half two days after that.
A couple of things that I have learned. I am improving the process by the way in which I cool the wort (or in this case must). I will put the kettle in the large basin in the garage and hook up water to the wort chiller. And I will have ice water within the basin. Also, towards the end I ran ice water through the chiller. That worked great. All the water coming from the wort chiller went into the washing machine.
As a side note I found it funny when I told Ellie that Kevin would ferment the mead she had the funniest look on her face. As if Kevin would steal the mead and never give us any. It was hilarious.
EDIT: Kevin's Mead OG was 1.095. We were shooting for 1.0.
We then oxygenated it for two minutes and added the yeast nutrients. Then we added 5 oranges and what two drunks think 100 raisins look like. The oranges were cut into 8ths. I made sure to sanitize everything.
We added the yeast and I dumped the stir bar into the bucket. I was going to say forget it but Kevin made me feel like we should get it. So I sprayed my arm with StarSan and went in there after it.
Kevin left with the mead and I gave him the nutrients with instructions to add half in two days and the other half two days after that.
A couple of things that I have learned. I am improving the process by the way in which I cool the wort (or in this case must). I will put the kettle in the large basin in the garage and hook up water to the wort chiller. And I will have ice water within the basin. Also, towards the end I ran ice water through the chiller. That worked great. All the water coming from the wort chiller went into the washing machine.
As a side note I found it funny when I told Ellie that Kevin would ferment the mead she had the funniest look on her face. As if Kevin would steal the mead and never give us any. It was hilarious.
EDIT: Kevin's Mead OG was 1.095. We were shooting for 1.0.
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