Back So Soon?

Hi all,

Yeah, so....for anyone who actually reads my blog, I apologize for the gap in time between posts. I think I just lost interest or got busy with work, or something like that. But, here I am!

So, since my last post, I've brewed a few more batches, all pretty good! My favorite so far has been the 9 Grams of Zest beer I made with Colleen, Mary, and Jake for the Island Pond Road Rally this year. This was a recipe combining the typical ingredients of a wheat beer and a kolsch, and we added the zest of an orange and a lemon. I just had my last bottle the other day, and man is it good! I've never actually brewed the same batch twice after brewing around 50 batches, but I know I'll want to make that one again.

My beverage-making endeavors have recently expanded, so I thought I'd share. I attempted to make hard cider a few years ago, but it was a massive failure. It was overly tart and eventually turned into vinegar. No good at all! But, I figured I would try again and really do it right. So, I bought 4 gallons of fresh apple cider from Carlson Orchards, combined it with 4 pounds of brown sugar, and prepared it for fermentation. I split this up into 5 one-gallon batches and used a few different yeast strains. I used an American Ale yeast, a British Ale yeast, and a wine yeast. My plan is to compare these ciders side by side, the only difference being the yeast. Should be interesting. I'm sure this will be a fun experiment to try on my friends and family, particularly if it comes out well. I need to be patient, though, as cider takes several months to ferment and age properly. Below is a picture of the ciders fermenting.
Now for an experiment I have never tried before: infused liquors! I learned about this process several years ago, but never thought about trying it. I've been interested in making Limoncello, which I still may do at some point, but for now, this is a pretty fun adventure. I started with the basics of taking vodka and adding one ingredient to infuse that flavor. I split a bottle of vodka into three portions and infused them with vanilla, orange, and coffee. Maybe eventually once I get the hang of it I'll get creative and make things like chocolate raspberry vodka, or jalapeno vodka, or chai vodka. So many possibilities! And these could be fun gifts for the holidays! Below is a picture of my first experiment with making infusions.


From left to right: Coffee Vodka, infused with a few ounces of freshly home-roasted coffee beans; Orange Vodka, infused with the zest of two oranges and one slice of orange; Vanilla Vodka, infused with one fresh vanilla bean from Harvest Co-op. This is early in the process. The ingredients will probably sit in the vodka for a few weeks before straining out and achieving the final product. I'll try to update on how they turned out.

Being Active Is Healthy!

This is true for beer fermentation, too! As I mentioned in an earlier post, the quicker the yeast begins its process and the more active it is, the better chance you end up with a cleaner, more complete fermentation. And this ultimately results in a better finished beer. So, you can imagine that I was excited to find that my porter began fermenting faster than any beer I've ever brewed (activity was clear within 4 hours), and once again it was rather explosive. The krausen (the foamy stuff on top of the fermenting beer) once again blew through the airlock, but this time it only created a tiny mess. It did not explode all over the room like during previous brews. Luckily, I now have a blow off tube and put it on just in time. My mom asked me if I'd really use it when she gave it to me for Christmas, and as you can see from the videos below, it was very much needed! Here are a few pics from the brewing process. Here are the grains in the mash tun getting ready to steep for an hour at 154 degrees in order to convert the starches in the grains to sugar. This is 11 lbs of grain including Belgian 2-row, chocolate malt (not actual chocolate, just malted barley that gives a dark color and chocolatey, roasty flavor), crystal 120 (which gives a dark color and sweet, caramelly flavor), and black patent malt (roasty flavor). The next picture is the grains after the 60 minutes and some more hot water added to stop conversion and prepare to run off into the brew pot. I didn't take many more pictures throughout the brewing process, but I can do that for future batches if needed. Usually I have other people helping me brew (ahem...Colleen!), so I have more hands to brew and take pictures. The next pictures show the beer in it's highest point of active fermentation. This usually takes 3-4 days but I will keep it in this primary fermenter for about a week, maybe longer depending on how long it takes to fully ferment. I brewed more than I wanted, which has it's good and bad points. Good--I have more beer! Bad--it won't be as strong since the additional water diluted it a bit. Plus, it forced me to put the additional beer in a second, one gallon fermenter. This isn't the worst thing, but it's just more work, more cleanup, and again not what I expected to do. But, overall, I'm still quite happy so far. Here is a picture of the 6 1/2 gallon fermenter and the 1 gallon fermenter:

















Finally, I thought I would share a few videos of the beer fermenting using the blow off tube. I'm posting three videos to show how violently it can ferment and how it progresses over just a few hours. Hopefully you find this interesting. If not, sorry, just deal with my obsession!










Pretty crazy! So basically, the tube is submerged in sanitation formula to keep any bad stuff from getting in. And all the 'stuff' coming out of the fermenter just gets mixed in with the sanitized water. Thus the progressively darker liquid. I considered narrating as I was taking the videos, but I hate listening to myself on tape/video! I also figured it's pretty self explanatory (although I felt the need to explain here).

I'll post again once it's done and the tasting is to begin, and then again perhaps when there's a winner!

Still Brewin'!

Just because I haven't posted in a while, it does not mean I've been slacking on brewing as well. On the contrary, I have quite the variety going right now. Here's the breakdown of what I have at home:
In the bottle:
Orange Blossom Mead--I bottled this during the summer, so clearly it's ready...and we've been enjoying it for several months now. However, from my research, mead can be aged for several years. And, if you age it correctly (cellar temps, good seal on the cap), it can be aged for decades. One guy reports that many people brew a batch for their child's birth and then share it with him/her on the 21st birthday. How cool would that be?! So, I'm attempted to at least save a few bottles as long as I can.

Banana Nut Brown--This is the beer that Colleen and I made, hoping that it would basically taste like banana bread. Well, it doesn't quite hit the mark on that, but it's a good brown ale. We probably have just a few bottles of that left unfortunately.

Barleywine--You've read about my efforts to brew this one up. And now that it's bottled and ready, I must say that it's not bad! At first I worried that it wasn't carbonated enough. But, silly me, I forgot the motto of "don't worry..." This beer came out well--good bitterness to match the very malty sweetness. Some caramel, dark fruit, brown sugar. And the 7-8% abv is well-hidden, but hits hard after a few drinks.

In the Fermenter:
Roggenbier: This was an all-grain batch given to me for Christmas. It's a kit from Northern Brewer. Here's the profile of the beer--
"A version of dunkelweizen (German dark wheat beer) that's brewed with a large percentage of rye instead of wheat, Roggenbier is an old Bavarian specialty. Our kit exhibits a rich reddish-brown color and the pungent spiciness of rye malt with bready, malty overtones. Excellent with cold cuts and rye bread or crackers (of course!)."
This is a fun one to brew, because you can't find nearly any versions of it on the shelves at liquor/beer stores. So, ya gotta brew it to drink it! I think this one will come out well, too. It's not nearly as strong in alcohol as others, so it'll be easier to drink (several).

On Deck:
American Porter--This is a simple porter recipe I made up with the guidance of a few other recipes I read. I plan to brew my porter this weekend. The fun thing about this beer is that I plan to break it into five one-gallon portions once it has been fermented and add a different ingredient to each portion. Once they are ready and bottled, I will invite a few friends over to test their palates to see if they can detect the ingredients and determine which is best. I wonder what ingredients might be added.........