Gingerbread Man on 15/7/2006 at 02:04

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As we wait for the latest batch to cool down enough so we can pitch the yeast and get it into primary fermentation, I sit here and type this post. And I'm drinking one of our Bloody Irish ales that turned out so delicious. The American Brown ought to be ready to bottle in a few days, and the mead gurgles happily to itself in the corner, but right now my attention is divided between the Bloody Irish in my glass and the Scathing Wit cooling in the other room.

We called it Bloody Irish on account of its remarkably blood-red colour. Here's what it looks like when I use the flash:

http://www.uelekevu.com/pictars/avec_flash.jpg

Here's what it looks like with the light behind it:

http://www.uelekevu.com/pictars/so_red.jpg

Oh god blood red.

And so tasty. Here are more pictures of it because it is so delicious:

http://www.uelekevu.com/pictars/bloody_irish_1.jpg

http://www.uelekevu.com/pictars/bloody_irish_2.jpg

We decided last month to try our hands at brewing our own beer. Simple as pie we hooked ourselves up with carboys, racking canes, siphons, airlocks, hydrometers, and all the nifty little things one uses to make yummy yummy beer in one's home.

And it makes home smell so delicious. Steeped grains and malty malt, roasted and toasted and milled and awesome. Today's adventure, the Scathing Wit, has been crafted acording to a recipe Starr decided on and it was enhanced during the end of the boil with dried orange peel, cardamom, and grains of paradise -- which will go awesomely with the sorts of yeasts we have chosen for this batch.

I still lumber along on my Three Policemen recipe, but it's pretty concrete and we'll be ordering the grains and yeasts for that sometime next week. It'll be a high-gravity ale, so it'll take some aging, but the Bloody Irish is a freakin' potent beer and that's pretty much perfect at 3 weeks old. We're going to test the American Brown (name still pending) next week when it'll be two weeks old, and we'll see how that goes.

We first tried the Bloody Irish after a week in bottles, and it was obviously too young. Way hoppy, a little grim... we could easily tell it wasn't ready. At two weeks however, it was amazing and smooth and STRONG. I'm not sure what we did off-profile with the red, but it's wonderfully fun to drink. We'll definitely be making more of that again, maybe with a couple of procedural differences though because, being our first ever beer, we made some novice errors that made the process more annoying than it ought to have been. Now that we're on our third batch we've managed to streamline the process considerably.

So yeah.

Let's talk about beer brewing, because we can't be the only ones enjoying this hobby. It was MrLedd who got us interested, so that's one other person. Anyone stepped into the world of full extract? Who got recipes for share? Who got questions that simpletons like I can answer? Who took my frog?

I'll find my frog.





edit: ahahahaaa we just took a gravity reading on the witbier before pitching the yeast... 1.068 :o

Malygris on 15/7/2006 at 03:28

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God help me for waving around my ignorance in such an unforgiving place, but what sort of recipes are you using for these brews? My dad used to brew his own beer using various kits ((http://www.muntons.com/homebeer/countries/canada_usa/default.asp) I recall he used the Muntons stuff a fair bit) but I'm assuming you're on a more traditional path. Or are you using kits as well, and modifying as you go?

ignatios on 15/7/2006 at 03:42

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god damn you gbm my mouth is watering like hurricane god damn katrina over here

'here' rhymes with 'beer'

I had better go to bed or this will end poorly for me

Gingerbread Man on 15/7/2006 at 04:06

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The Irish Red and the American Brown were both made from pre-mixed / measured grains / extracts that we ordered when we got the equipment from (http://www.morebeer.com) B3.

Specifically, the Irish Red recipe involved

Grains: Crystal 120L (1lb), Aromatic (8 oz), Caramunich (8 oz), Black Roasted (2 oz), and Special B (2 oz)

Malt Extract: Ultralight (7 lbs)

Hops: Magnum (1 oz, bittering), and Williamette (2 oz, flavouring)

The American Brown was a little less complex in terms of grains, but more complex with the hops... But of course we still have to see how it turned out.

The Witbier is something Starr generated after reviewing, absorbing, extrapolating, and personalising a fair number of extant recipes found online or in the very excellent Brewmaster's Bible. Three Policemen is a bit more vague, being a product of concepts and ideas that I like rather than staying true to any one genre. Of course, that's what makes it more difficult -- especially since I'm only just starting to come to grips with the various effects and uses and subtleties involved with hops.

We're planning to go down the highway a while and visit B3 in person. MrLedd recommends such a voyage, and we cannot deny his expertise in these things. Perhaps I'll be able to mutter enough of an explanation that they'll be able to recommend me some avenues to explore.

So the first two (Irish Red and American Brown) are kit-based recipes. The Scathing Witbier is a personalised recipe in the vein of many witbiers out there, and the Three Policemen is a fever dream of ultimate black ale that will hopefully find flesh in a satisfactory way.

Once you do some reading, research, and experimentation I think the recipes starts to make themsepves more obvious to you. It's like any other cooking, I guess... Once you know WHY Indian food tastes the way it does (what processes, ingredients, and spices create that flavour) it's not much of a stretch to concoct your own personalised curry. Or anything else for that matter. Shit, make a strawberry chutney if you like.


Hell yes. It's crazy hot here right now (I have been told 106F tomorrow or something equally soon), and to keep the fermenter anywhere NEAR the 70-odd degrees needed for the yeast to do its thing we have sat the carboy right next to the air conditioner in the bedroom. In the winter it'll be easier. But yeah... lagers are Right Out Of The Question in the summer. I prefer ales anyway, though.

What we could really use is a wort chiller, fs. Getting that decent cold break is damned near impossible when you're chilling the kettle for an hour in the tub, but it seems to have been okay so far. But a wort chiller is problematic on account of I'm not sure we could get it to attach to the faucet properly and we have no outdoor / hose taps. Bad luck.

Strangeblue on 15/7/2006 at 07:38

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We used to brew when we had a house. It's impossible in the boat, though. Our first try was a brown from a kit but it was a disaster--contaminated at an early stage and went phenolic and nasty.

After that we started using recipies from Brewer's Bible and 3B and buying our malt from a local brew supply and produced nice browns consistently. We also produced a whitbeir that was really excellent--they're a little tricky, but lovely.

We've also done some cider, cyser and mead. Only the first batch of cider was undrinkable and we had to beat our friends with sticks to keep them from bogarting all the cyser--yum!

Brewing is very easy up here in Seattle--it's rarely very hot or very cold and there are many varieties of delicious hops. I miss it....