Since I last posted I have brewed 3 new creations and also added to the way I brew.
So, lets start off with the why behind not brewing for the last couple of months - it was too hot to brew as the temp would often only drop into the mid 70's at night. So there was the challenge for me. (Traveling for work had nothing to do with it). So how about those brews.
The first brew I don't know if you could call it a brew. It is a variant of EdWort's Apfelwein. I chose to modify it by swapping out two gallons of apple cider with cherry pomegranate juice. My recent tasting when bottling was really promising. It seems to have fermented lighter than the full cider version usually does. I'm hoping the wife likes it!
The second brew was part of a homework assignment I had with a couple of fellow homebrewers. Each of us was to create a SMaSH with Marris Otter Malt and a hop of our choice. To mitigate the heat factor, I wound up doing a mini BIAB batch on my stove and wound up with 2.5 gallons of a Amarillo Marris Otter SMaSH. I'm thinking of naming it the Western Brit.
The most recent brew I did was the wheat beer again. I modified it slightly by adding more hops during the boil and more lemon to it. It is currently fermenting away in the basement. Note for those of you who use Wyeast 1010 (American Wheat) it reeks when fermenting. Our basement is very eggy this week, but the end result is very much worth it! The beer I made last was by far my best and slight tweaking is another assignment - to fix a brew where we could see where it fell short.
My setup has also improved a bit. I built a portable brew sculpture. It is not much, but it gives me the extra 10 inches I needed to ensure that I am never lifting a heavy brew pot again! 2 standard cinder blocks and two cinder pavers stacked is a beautiful thing.
Happy Brewing!
Charles
So, lets start off with the why behind not brewing for the last couple of months - it was too hot to brew as the temp would often only drop into the mid 70's at night. So there was the challenge for me. (Traveling for work had nothing to do with it). So how about those brews.
The first brew I don't know if you could call it a brew. It is a variant of EdWort's Apfelwein. I chose to modify it by swapping out two gallons of apple cider with cherry pomegranate juice. My recent tasting when bottling was really promising. It seems to have fermented lighter than the full cider version usually does. I'm hoping the wife likes it!
The second brew was part of a homework assignment I had with a couple of fellow homebrewers. Each of us was to create a SMaSH with Marris Otter Malt and a hop of our choice. To mitigate the heat factor, I wound up doing a mini BIAB batch on my stove and wound up with 2.5 gallons of a Amarillo Marris Otter SMaSH. I'm thinking of naming it the Western Brit.
The most recent brew I did was the wheat beer again. I modified it slightly by adding more hops during the boil and more lemon to it. It is currently fermenting away in the basement. Note for those of you who use Wyeast 1010 (American Wheat) it reeks when fermenting. Our basement is very eggy this week, but the end result is very much worth it! The beer I made last was by far my best and slight tweaking is another assignment - to fix a brew where we could see where it fell short.
My setup has also improved a bit. I built a portable brew sculpture. It is not much, but it gives me the extra 10 inches I needed to ensure that I am never lifting a heavy brew pot again! 2 standard cinder blocks and two cinder pavers stacked is a beautiful thing.
Happy Brewing!
Charles