Showing posts with label Homebrewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homebrewing. Show all posts

Monday, December 15, 2008

Homebrewing Adventures (misadventures?)

I've been on kind of a homebrewing kick recently, probably because of the new beer fridge, and hoping that some day, I'll be filling it up with soda-kegs of homebrew. Two weeks ago, Paddy and I tried an ex-beer-iment with some water that was used to boil beans... we thought about trying to drink it Saturday, but when we took off the air lock, it smelled like a carboy full of vomit.

So we fertilized one of my trees with it (yes, it's a tree I hope to kill).

Also on Saturday, we transferred a kit Russian Imperial Stout into secondary. That one had an starting gravity of 1.080 and when we transferred it, it went to 1.030. We re-pitched yeast in it, and will let it sit for another couple of weeks, and hope if drops a little lower.

Additionally on Saturday, for the first time, I made a yeast starter. I was mesmerized watching it create carbon-dioxide. So many bubble from only 650 ml of wort and yeast.

Sunday was brewing day. This one was going to wind up being an Imperial Blueberry Wheat. I had purchased the supplies for this last weekend. We went with 2 cans of Muton and Fison Wheat syrup, and 4 lbs of wheat dme. We used an ounce of hops at the boil, and another for finishing (I'll get the names later). After the brewing hour was done, Paddy used a potato smasher to pulverize the blueberries.

We chilled the wort down to about 80, and added the rest of the water, topped off to 5 gallons. I stirred up the yeast that I had started on Saturday, and poured it into the beer. Paddy added the blueberries, and we took a gravity reading of 1.087. This was thicker than the stout from the week before.

We capped it, and set it on the kitchen table, this was about 6 p.m. We went to our beds around 10:30, and there was no activity in the bucket. I woke up, for no reason, around 2:30 and checked, still no activity, I wondered if I had killed the yeast somehow.

When I got up at 6:30, this is what I found.

The lid had blown off the bucket. It was actually (conveniently) in the box, with the airlock still in place.

So, I cleaned off the lid, and took a foam paper plate and scooped off the krausen. Then put the lid back on... it foamed up and out of the airlock.

I left for work at 9. Before leaving, I removed the lid about 4 times, and scooped out the krausen. Before I left, I moved the pail into the bathtub. If this thing was gonna blow up, I'd feel bad about losing the beer, but I'd feel worse about having 5 gallons of blueberry sugar water on my kitchen floor for 9 hours.

When I get home, I'll update the status of my bathtub, and what the hops varieties were.

Coincidentally, Paddy asked what the clever name for this was gonna be, after we finished brewing.

He came up with BleWit.

Blew (blueberry) Wit (wheat).

As to the lid, the beer BLEWIT off the pail.


*update* I got off work at 3:30 today and ran home to check the beer. Hoping that the pail didn't asplode. Well, the lid had blown off, at some point. My bathtub looks like someone had bad diarrhea and shat all over it, but that's just from the foam.

I don't know how long the lid was off for, but here's a pic.

I cleaned up the lid and the rim of the pail, and with another paper plate, scraped off the top of the krausen (don't worry, it'll make more). Then I moved it back onto the kitchen table, put the lid on it, and re-set the airlock. (Not that it really matters now, does it?) Within seconds, the airlock started bubbling, so it's been about 20 hours since this thing was first pitched, and it's blown the lid twice, and had 2-3 inches of foam scraped off five times. It's a little aggressive.

The foam does smell nicely of blueberries, so that's good. It also has some blueberry chunks in it, I feel a bit bad about washing that away, but we'll be putting more into it later.

I'll get another gravity reading, should it ever stop blowing up.

Hops were Wilamette (bittering) and Spalt (finishing).

Friday, December 5, 2008

Brewing on Sunday

Sunday afternoon around 3:30 or so (around the start of the second round of football games) we're going to be brewing at my house.

We'll be making a Blueberry wheat, hoping to get an ABV of about 8% and I think we might be able to get that.

So, if you want to come out and play, look me up.

V

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day *Update*

Over lunch today, went to Friar Tucks and picked up two kits to be used on Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day, (Nov. 1).

I got the English Brown Ale and the India Pale Ale kits. I was going to pick up some extra hops to throw into the IPA kit, but Tucks was completely out of hops. I will be going back closer to November 1, to pick up some better yeast than the packet of "Brewers Yeast" that is in the box.

We'll be in the kitchen all day.

Remind me that I'll need my wort chiller back from Scott. Also, I need to pick up some more cleanser.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day

November 1, this year is Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. If anyone wants to learn how to make beer, we can brew up a batch of delicious (hopefully) barley pop.

I can't guarantee that you'll have a good time; I can guarantee you won't be thirsty.

I like to make darker stoutier beers, but we can do a brown if there's interest in that. I know Josh really likes the tart beers, but I'm not sure if we can make a beer with bretts. (hehe).

So if you are interested (Josh, Linds, Ty... anyone else in CU) let me know.

We can try our hand at a more complex beer, or we can brew one simply from a kit. It all depends on who wants to do it.

The more people, the less you'll have to clean.