Tuesday, December 3, 2013

What is fermenting now?

It's a busy time of year and we've managed to squeeze in some time for brewing.  As I sit here I can hear the occasional bubbling of the Imperial Stout in the fermentation refrigerator three feet away.

In what used to be called the linen and game closet sits 5 gallons of Robust Porter.  This will be ready to keg this weekend.  My first ever kegged beer.  We are determined to make good dark beers, without them coming out too acidic and/or astringent.  This has a nice maltiness to it.  Brewed on 11-17-2013.  It should finish up at 6.6% ABV.

Next, we have a single gallon of mead still pulsing away after a week and a half (???).  It's slowed down and I'll check it out this weekend, but want to let it continue to sit alone for awhile.  Once it ferments out, we'll add some of the "yeast killer" stuff (I forget what it is called and don't want to get up at the present to check) and then back sweeten with some additional honey.

On Thanksgiving day we brewed the Imperial Stout.  This was the most expensive beer to date, with a hefty 21 pound grain bill.  We decided to do a "no sparge" with this one, to get only the best runnings from the grain and not risk getting all the tanins and lowering the pH too much.  The dark grains still scare me somewhat and I want to keep an eye on the pH, especially with the dark beers.  It was checked last night and seems to be just right.  The gravity is down to 1.026 after 4 days fermenting and I've held the temps cool at the 66 degree range for most of it.

Finally, we decided to experiment with the lemons off the tree in the back yard to make a hard lemonade.  I have no idea how this will turn out.  I guess we will see.

What are you brewing this month?

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