Monday, January 09, 2006
Busy in beerland...
Man. I feel like I've been up to my eyeballs doing beer stuff recently, but not brewing - my last brew was New Years Eve (Amarillo Pale Ale). This weekend we emptied all the bottles from my garage by stripping the labels off them. We ended up with 4 cases of 12oz bottles and 10 22oz bottles. I actually came up with a good plan - concentrated solution of PBW in my brew kettle, and I could soak a case at a time. It had the added benefit of being able to re-heat the solution when it got cold AND my kettle is amazingly clean now! Of course - it took 5 hours. I was wiped on Saturday.
Sunday was time to move some of my beer in secondaries to kegs - I now have a keg of Oak Aged Vanilla porter carbonating as well as the keg of my Homegrown Pale Ale 2005. I'll wait another week or two before I keg my Abbey dubbel.
Tonight I moved my 10 gallons of Amarillo Pale Ale to secondaries w/ an ounce of Amarillo dry-hopping in each. I absolutely adore this recipe - and it smells fantastic. I think I am down to around 4 ounces of Amarillo, so I'll have to check with Joe if he can order me another pound. Joe at How Do You Brew? will cut you an amazing deal on hops if you buy a pound at a time. I got a pound of Columbus 14.6% from him for like $8. Woot!
I think tomorrow night I'll measure out the grains for my Maibock. My starter is essentially done fermenting, so now I am waiting for the yeast to flocculate so I can decant most of the liquid. With a 1 1/2 gallon starter, I should have LOTS of yeast to ferment 5 gallons of Maibock. I wish I could say that I had the "Relax, Don't Worry, Have A Homebrew" attitude towards my first endeavor into the world of Lager brewing, but I really don't - I've been a stress case for a week or so now. Once I prove to myself that I can brew a good lager, I think I won't worry so much.
I have also listed all the beers I have slated for the next 3-4 months, and wow - I've got alot planned. When I looked at the list, I couldn't believe what all I had "on deck" already - it doesn't leave much room for experimentation for a while. So far the list includes:
That right there will chew through nearly the first 1/2 of my alloted gallons for the year (92.5 gal), and I've already got recipes for the vast majority of them written up in Promash. It's nuts. I suspect I will not have any problem hitting the 200 gal mark again this year.
Well, its time to go to bed and dream of stainless steel brew sculptures and temperature-controlled conical fermenters. Cheers all!
Sunday was time to move some of my beer in secondaries to kegs - I now have a keg of Oak Aged Vanilla porter carbonating as well as the keg of my Homegrown Pale Ale 2005. I'll wait another week or two before I keg my Abbey dubbel.
Tonight I moved my 10 gallons of Amarillo Pale Ale to secondaries w/ an ounce of Amarillo dry-hopping in each. I absolutely adore this recipe - and it smells fantastic. I think I am down to around 4 ounces of Amarillo, so I'll have to check with Joe if he can order me another pound. Joe at How Do You Brew? will cut you an amazing deal on hops if you buy a pound at a time. I got a pound of Columbus 14.6% from him for like $8. Woot!
I think tomorrow night I'll measure out the grains for my Maibock. My starter is essentially done fermenting, so now I am waiting for the yeast to flocculate so I can decant most of the liquid. With a 1 1/2 gallon starter, I should have LOTS of yeast to ferment 5 gallons of Maibock. I wish I could say that I had the "Relax, Don't Worry, Have A Homebrew" attitude towards my first endeavor into the world of Lager brewing, but I really don't - I've been a stress case for a week or so now. Once I prove to myself that I can brew a good lager, I think I won't worry so much.
I have also listed all the beers I have slated for the next 3-4 months, and wow - I've got alot planned. When I looked at the list, I couldn't believe what all I had "on deck" already - it doesn't leave much room for experimentation for a while. So far the list includes:
- Maibock (5 gal)
- Choking Sun Stout (7.5 gal)
- Native Range IRA (10 gal)
- McBride's Strong Ale on Bourbon Oak Cubes (5 gal)
- Rise & Shine Oatmeal Stout (10 gal)
- Oktoberfest (5 gal)
- Tupelo Honey Ale (10 gal)
- Foggy Moor Peated Scottish 80/- (5 gal)
- Clan Morrison Scotch Ale (5 gal)
- Hefeweizen (5 gal normal, 5 gallons on a fruit puree in secondary)
- Robust Porter (10 gal)
- Hell's Bells Belgian Ale (5 gal)
- For Whom the Bell Tolls Tripel (5 gal)
That right there will chew through nearly the first 1/2 of my alloted gallons for the year (92.5 gal), and I've already got recipes for the vast majority of them written up in Promash. It's nuts. I suspect I will not have any problem hitting the 200 gal mark again this year.
Well, its time to go to bed and dream of stainless steel brew sculptures and temperature-controlled conical fermenters. Cheers all!
