Moving Towards All Grain

Not much action here as we are still collecting the equipment needed to brew All Grain batches.

The SECRET RECIPE batch has been kegged and will be ready to sample around Thanksgiving.

I finally actually dumped the bad batch of Kolsch. It was sad, but it still tasted very bad and I needed the keg.

I'll have some equipment updates and pics soon.

I just can't do it!

I still haven't dumped the Kolsch. I just can't bring myself to do it. I suppose I'll hang on to it until I absolutely need the keg and hope some magic happens.

The worst side effect of not being able to drink the Kolsch is that I have no homebrew to drink at the moment. Again. I'm thinking of starting a petition to have myself removed as brewmaster. I clearly lack the level of responsibility that I demand from myself. How can I be trusted when I have failed so many times in the short period that I have been responsible for making beer for me? Ridiculous.

The English Bitter was great. Lots of people liked it and it went over well at Rod's Octoberfest. It's not going to win the Clone Wars, but we'll probably make it again.

The SUPER SECRET RECIPE is coming along. It is in secondary in the carboy and I just dry-hopped it today. I tasted it when I moved it to the carboy and it is wonderful so far. I can't wait for it to be ready.

Time Heals All Wounds?

I have had only one bad batch of beer since I started brewing way way back in May of 2008. It was batch #3 and my understanding of what the problem could be was tenuous at best. The beer tasted like chemicals and was completely un-drinkable (despite the fact that we drank it). I bottled some of that batch for a couple of reasons. I wanted to see if, over time, the beer "fixed itself" and I wanted to have some more knowledgeable people try it and tell me what the problem was.

I did have some beer guru types try it and the problem they identified was in-step with my main suspicion - chemicals in the beer (duh). At the time this would have been Oxy-Clean or One-Step that did not get rinsed thoroughly from some vessel that the beer spent time in during its birth.

I changed my cleaning ritual and eliminated the One-Step, replacing it with StarSan. I also made sure that I rinsed a few more times than I thought was necessary just to be sure. I have not had a problem since.

Until batch #10. Same exact problem. In fact, it is even worse than batch #3. It's like drinking industrial strength glue. I'm not sure what happened, but now I'm sure that what I am tasting is Oxy-Clean. I'm guessing that I was tired during one of the transfers and racked the batch into a keg that I had not rinsed very well. But there is light at the end of this tunnel, right?

Today, with hope in my heart, I grabbed one of the bottles from batch #3. It has been a few months and if the beer could fix itself, it should have by now. I knew that if the beer in the bottle was good, I could just take the batch #10 keg and store it for a few months and it would be fine. No harm done.

But no. The bottled beer, although clear and gorgeous, tasted the same - bad.

So this weekend I will be doing something I have never done - dumping a full keg of beer. I can't even bring myself to con my friends into drinking this stuff - it is just hideous.

The Last of the Strawberry Blonde

I bottled the last of the Strawberry Blonde keg this morning yielding 10 bottles which are now stashed in the beer fridge. This recipe was a big hit and we will definitely make it again. The beer was a bit cloudy, even after being in the fridge for a couple of weeks. I'm not sure why - perhaps it needs to sit in secondary even longer or could really benefit from a good cold-break after the boil.

A note about the Kolsch: We killed the first batch at Foamstock. Neither of us were a big fan of it even though there was nothing wrong with it. The second batch is in the fridge now and although it has a better initial taste, the aftertaste is crappy - very green tasting or possibly some other issue. I'm going to let it sit another week and try it again. Even at its best, this recipe just isn't clicking and I don't plan on making it again.

If you want to try the Strawberry Blonde you better stop by soon - I don't see those 10 bottles surviving long around here.

Everything is... fine?

Still no activity in the Kolsch airlock today, so I popped the top to take a look. It had good krausen and smelled like beer. I took a gravity reading and it was fine - down from 1042 to 1012 already.

I guess the fermentation not only took off like a rocket, but died down really fast as well and I just missed the whole thing.

Still, I have never seen an airlock just sit there like that. Even the 5 week old Strawberry Blonde in the carboy has a bubble or two in the airlock. It makes me think the primary bucket is not sealed or something. I'll take a closer look once I rack the beer out of it.

Ahhh Houston..?

We might have a problem. I poured the second batch of Kolsch on the yeast cake of the first batch and I have yet to see any real activity in the airlock. About 12 hours after after putting them together I saw some, but it has been dead ever since.

I replaced the airlock in case the first one was clogged (it was not) and peeked through the airlock hole. I thought I could see krausen, but it was hard to tell.

I'm going to give it another day and if there is still nothing happening I'll have to get a better look and maybe take a gravity reading to find out what is really going on.

On the up side, the Strong Ale is fermenting like nothing I have ever seen. I'm lucky I put a blow-off tube on it instead of an airlock otherwise I think I would have a mess on my hands.

Batch #10 - Kölsch Again

I'm going to give my first batch of Kölsch away, so I'm brewing up another.

Brew Date: 8/9/08
Recipe:
45 Minute Steep -
.5 lb. Breiss 2 row malt
.75 lb. carapils malt

50 Minute Boil -
4.5 lb. Pale LME
2 oz. Spalt Hops (2.0%)
1 tsp. Irish Moss (15)
1 oz. Spalt Hops (2.0%) (5)
Wyeast 1007 (Batch #9 yeast cake)

Target FG: 1.008
OG: 1.042 (assumed)