Rochefort #10?
April 22, 2005
So I came across a recipe for Rochefort #10 over in the Realbeer.com Discussions.
Category beer
Dishes…
April 15, 2005
When brewing beer, I wash up my beer brewing tools and gear with the sodium percarbonate-based Oxyclean. This is because it is a non-surfactant detergent which does a really good job. It leaves absolutely no residue, is a great degreaser (soap residue and oils will kill all signs of head in a beer), and just cleans really really well.
Well, I’ve also been washing my beer glasses with Oxyclean as well, because then the glasses are as absolutely clean as possible.
What I’m wondering is… Well… Can anyone see any harm in using Oxyclean for all my dishes?
I don’t believe there are any products I normally use in cooking which it could damage, and it seems like it’d do a great job cleaning… And yes, it would cost a little more per load of dishes, but the cleaning capabilities don’t seem to degrade as much as with soap once the dishwater starts to get a bit dirty. Oh, and even better, Oxyclean doesn’t have any fragrance…
…
April 7, 2005
Well, there it is… Beer #4 is bottled.
It seems that because my basement is so cold, I ended up with a cask conditioned beer already. It had about one atmosphere of carbonation in it, so it fizzed and foamed a bit if agitated.
Also, I’m worried about it carbonating… There was a good thin layer of very fine yeast sediment in the bottom of the carboy after secondary fermentation (bulk aging). Sort of like what is left in the bottom of a bottle of good beer… I just hope that this stuff carbonates. :\
Then again, that’s always a concern of mine…
Well, we’ll see.
Sour Mash Beer…
March 23, 2005
Click for lots of detail…
Well, there it is, beer batch #4 all fermenting away. It’s been about 20 hours since the yeast was pitched, and it’s happily fermenting. I attached my new digital thermometer to the side in order to keep an eye on things. It’s currently at 70.3ºF which is a bit hotter than the recipe calls for, but it should be all right. Maybe I’ll knock the temp in the house down a degree to try and bring it down a little.
Regardless, it’s fermenting away… Hopefully it’ll be good. Oh, this is the batch that was made with the sour mash. I overshot in adding water, so it’s a little weaker than I intended with an OG (original gravity, or density before yeast is added) of 1.040. The target was 1.045 or something like that. This means it’ll be a little lighter and slightly less alcoholic than intended, but not by much…
Oh, and if you want to see a video of the beer churning around, look here: http://www.nuxx.net/albums/brewing_beer/DSCN0458.mov
That THUNK THUNK THUNK sound in the background is the bubbles coming out of the blowoff hose and reverberating through the bathtub. Each bubble is about half the size of a ping pong ball, so you see that making beer really kicks out a lot of CO2.
Rot!
March 19, 2005
Hmm, well, there is a pot of chilled wort sitting on the counter, all covered up. Hopefully it’ll start rotting soon. I’d like to be able to brew Sunday or Monday, but it might go off a bit further than that.
I’ve actually had a similar kind of rot happen before, by filling up a mixing bowl from chocolate chip cookies with straight water and letting it sit for a while. After about a week there’d be a bit of scum with bubbles in it, and a nasty sour stink. That’s almost exactly what I’m looking for, but it’s intentional this time.
Oh, and for anyone who won’t try this because of how it’s made, know that lambics are fermented in a similar manner. You just toss all the stuff in, expose it to the air, and let it go. Completely natural…
Hmm, maybe I’ll do a raspberry lambic when summer rolls around. I’ll just let it sit outside or in front of the cracked doorwall for a while…
Rot!
March 18, 2005
Tonight I have to add some grains to a pot of water, then let them rot.
Literally.
I’m making up some beer that supposedly gets a bunch of it’s flavor from sour mash, and I need to make some. Yes, this is the same stuff as some whiskeys are made from. Basically, you let grain steep at a high enough temperature to mash the grains into sugar, then cover it and let it be. It’s supposed to be used once it’s so stinky you think it should be thrown out.
This should be interesting.
I, for one, welcome our new white trash overlords…
December 22, 2004
Click for bigger!
Heh. Today UPS delivered, straight from Amazon, the world’s trashiest piece of cooking gear. It surpasses any Ronco product, and even the mighty Pasta Pot. Yes, it is a turkey fryer…
That said, it (fortunately) will not be used for it’s intended purpose. See, it was US$20, delivered, for a 30qt pot on a nice powerful gas burner. This is just about exactly what I need to make beer, as doing it in a smaller pot on the stove is kinda half-assed. See, if you don’t boil the full volume of what gets made into beer (the wort) the beer can have a bit darker color… Going this route should just make things a bit nicer, and it should allow me to get it all up to a boil in a bit less time. I’ll just have to work outside. Ah well. :)
California Style Imperial Pale Ale
December 10, 2004
[Cross posted to
Click for more…
Well, after a ~23 hour lag before fermenting, my second batch of beer, first partial mash, and first with a carboy as the primary is going strong. If anyone would like the recipe / notes that I’m using, it can be found here.
Also available in the photo gallery are two video clips, one of the wort churning around and another of the overflow tube in the sanitizer bubbling along.
Needless to say, I’m really excited about this batch. In order to avoid the hassle of washing and filling bottles, I’m planning on acquiring kegging equipment next week. From my local homebrewing supply store it should only be about $150 for a keg or two, lines, connectors, regulator, and CO2 tank. Not bad, I don’t think… And nice and fun. :)
!!!
December 8, 2004
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Well, guess what I did today? Yep, the second batch of beer…
So, yep. It’s sitting there waiting to start fermenting. If everything goes as planned, this will be kegged right around New Year’s Eve. Yay!
It’s done! (Almost…)
November 29, 2004
[Crossposted to
Click for more…
Thanks to everyone in
With an OG of 1.043 and a FG of 1.012, my calculations put it at right about 4.15% ABV.
It’s now sitting back in the bathtub, (hopefully) carbonating, and waiting for me to sample it in one week.
If anyone would like to poke through the pictures I took at various times throughout the process, they can all be found here. I’ve also got the notes I kept throughout the process here. I think that next time I’ll ensure that I have enough ice on hand, averting a run to the party store in order to cool the wort (it was still cooled to 70°F within 35 minutes), and use a 6.5 gallon carboy for my primary fermenter.
Oh, and next time I’ll be brewing the California Style Imperial Pale Ale kit mentioned at the top of this page.