Archive for category Home Brewing
Home Brew – More mead updates
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on January 7, 2012
Another day, another vigorous stirring and nutrient addition. This is the third and potentially last nutrient addition for the mead (the first was 2.5g of nutrient and energizer, the 5g of energizer and today was 2.5g of nutrient and energizer). I took another gravity reading (1.060, 4.5%ABV, but still has a long way to drop) and stirred out the CO2 which was quite minimal today.
I need to keep taking readings for the next month or so because the yeast can stall easily and ruin the batch. If it does happen to stall or even slow a little I may pitch another packet of EC-1118 into the must.
Home Brew – Gravities of Mead and Bitter Ale
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing, Photography, Travel on January 4, 2012
I did the first nutrient addition to the mead last night, plus stirred it wildly for about 5 minutes. I added about a 1/2 tablespoon of DAP and Yeast Energizer. This is a few days late, but I believe its better late then never. This morning I continued to stir the mead to remove the CO2 and took a gravity reading which is still showing signs of fermentation; 1.073. Its got a long way to go, but mead is not a rushed brew.
I also took a reading of the Harpy New Years! Bitter ale. Its sitting around 1.020 and appears to still be fermenting. It is probably pretty close to being finished fermenting, but I won’t be touching it until the end of the month.
Another photo my friend took. I believe this is somewhere in Nepal.
Home Brew – Fermentation un-woes
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on January 2, 2012
Looks like pitching the Pacman was the right thing to do. When I got home I could see the English Bitter showing visible signs of fermentation which included a nice foamy krausen. I also took a minute stir the mead wildly releasing as much CO2 as I could be bothered to and took a gravity reading showing it was down to 1.081 from 1.096.
Year in Review (in English)
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Fitness, Hobbies, Home Brewing, Japanese Language, Misc on December 31, 2011
Time to say goodbye to 2011. Bye 2011!
This year was one where I broke some long standing personal records and achieved some challenging goals. For strength related personal records: I made a PR for Bench Press, an exercise I sucked at pretty bad, pressing 215lbs once (30% over my body weight). I set a PR for deadlifts just last weekend, lifting 265lbs once. I did a hanging clean of 145lbs once yesterday as well, another PR. For calisthenic related goals, I did my first Muscle Up early this year, followed up by reaching a PR 7 consecutive last month. I completed the 100 Days of Burpees Challenge and managed to make 75 Pullups in under 5 minutes. I also did a lot of running to train for the 5KM Run for the Cure, which I did while wearing a 20lbs training vest in just under 25 minutes total time.
This year was also very beer heavy. I believe I made over 20 beers this year, plus a couple ciders and wines. I made the switch from extract brewing to all grain this summer and began to produce vastly better beers. My last 12 or so batches have all been from grain to glass and I have no intention of switching back to extract. Ever. Through time saving brewing techniques such as no-chilling and BIAB I have cut my brew day time down to under 4 hours. I also tried a few money saving techniques such as yeast harvesting, yeast washing and bulk buying grain (which I believe I still have around 100lbs of in my basement…). Don’t even ask me how much of that beer I drank.
As for my Japanese study… Well… I could have done a lot more this year. I studied quite a bit of low level kanji and can recognize around 200+ characters now (well if I reviewed them again over a week). I know my vocabulary has gotten a smidge larger and my ability to write (on a computer… I can barely write in English on paper anymore) has improved. Overall though I don’t think I made very much headway in the area of Japanese in 2011.
I do not know what 2012 will bring, but something tells me its going to be a very amazing year.
Home Brew – Fermentation woes
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on December 31, 2011
I am leaving town to spend New Years in the Rocky Mountains within the hour and will not be home until tomorrow evening. I pitched my dry yeast into the wort around 5PM last night (14 hours ago) and when I checked the wort this morning there were no signs of any fermentation taking hold.
No kruasen. No odour. No tiny little bubbles. Nothing.
I realize that it can take over 24 hours for even small signs of fermentation to appear, but it really is not the norm. Generally I would just wait until the 24 hour mark before considering the yeast a possible failure, but the yeast I pitched was very old though still well within its Best Before date. I decided because of my absence this weekend it would be safer to pitch one of the bottles of wash Pacman yeast I had sitting in the fridge.
Odds are it was just lag time, but I do not want to risk letting my wort sit around for the next 48 hours without fermentation.
Home Brew – English Special Bitter Ale
Posted by bradinator in Beer, Home Brewing on December 31, 2011
This is the last brew of the year and depending on how January goes, possibly the last brew for a long time.
I wanted to try a full bodied English Bitter Ale. I got a new nylon sack yesterday for my Brew-in-a-bag sessions. It is much larger then my previous BIAB bag making the mash a lot easier to deal with. This is going to be my first full bodied mash as well, allowing the temperature to sit at 158F for 70 minutes.
She's had one too many and looking for a party. At least I think its a she.
Harpy New Years! Bitter Ale —
Grains/Adjuncts
- 5.0 lbs Pale Ale Malt
- 1.5 lbs 2 Row Pale Malt
- 0.5 lbs 2 Row, 0.5 lbs Pilsner, Roasted at 375F for 45 minutes
Hops/Herbs
- 0.5 oz Williamette @ 45 min
- 0.5 oz Tettnang @ 30 min
- 0.5 oz Williamette @ 20 min
- 0.5 oz Tettnang @ 5 min
Misc
- 1 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ Flame out
- 1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 10 minutes (for clarity)
- Windsor Ale Yeast
Procedures
- Unconditioned malt, milled once
- Brew-in-a-Bag
- Single Step Mash, ~156F-158F, 70 minutes, 4.5 gallons
- Sparge, 1.25 gallons, 170F
- 45 minute boil
- Ice Bath Chill
Beer Profile
- Batch Size – 4.5 gallons
- Actual OG: 1.046 (Eff: 75%), Estimated FG: 1.012 (4.4% ABV)
- IBU – ~25
Home Brew – Mead Making, 101
Posted by bradinator in Home Brewing on December 30, 2011
Mead is actually pretty simple to make when you compare the process to brewing beer. You are adding honey to water and stirring until its dissolved, then pitching yeast nutrients and the yeast itself into the honey must. The science of mead making is a bit more involved and there are some additional processes you need do during the first few weeks of fermentation.
Last night I boiled up 5 gallons of water to prepare it for the 7KG of honey I was going to add. Its important to remember to never boil honey in the water as it will destroy some of its more delicate flavours. I allowed the water to cool until around 150F and proceeded to VERY CAREFULLY add the liquid honey to the warm water. I don’t think I need to stress how much of a sticky mess it would make if you were to spill even a small amount of honey. I stirred until it was dissolved and added the yeast nutrient (DAP and vitamin B combination). I used a cup of the honey must, a teaspoon of yeast nutrient and a teaspoon of yeast energizer to make a mead starter.
The honey must was moved into the fermenter and allowed to cool to 27C before adding the yeast starter.
There was some visible signs of fermentation this morning, though without a gravity reading its really impossible to tell. I stirred the now fermenting must to remove some of the CO2 as per the advice given from the mead makers at Chinook Arch meadery. I will continue to stir it as often as possible over the next couple weeks to remove excess CO2 as it can make yeast toxic and impact the fermentation. I will also take a gravity reading later tonight just to be sure the yeast is actually doing something.
Here is the recipe —
Mead —
Ingredients -
- 7KG (15.7lbs) Honey
- 5 Gallons of boiled and cooled water
- 2 tsp Yeast Nutrient
- EC-1118 Yeast starter (1/2tsp yeast nutrient, 1/2tsp yeast energizer)
Profile -
- Style: Traditional Dry Mead
- Batch Size – 6.0 gallons
- Actual OG: 1.092 , Estimated FG: 0.995 (12.7% ABV)