Wednesday Oct 27 2010

I have done a few batches since my last blog post. The Octoberfest Cream Ale actually turned out well. The diacetyl actually conditioned out and I have a few bottles left that have been bottled for 60 days. After the cream ale I did a little experiment for Mr. Beer using a test sanitizer. They sent me the sanitizer and a batch of Bewitched Red Ale w/ mellow amber UME, which I called Mystery Red Ale, in the spirit of the experiment. I brewed that up using the sanitizer they sent with it to test. Everything seemed to work just fine. The batch is in the bottle three weeks today and tastes pretty good. I will wait the full 4 weeks in the bottle before I fill out the questionaire and send it back to them. I brewed this one straight up and fermented in the cooler at about 66-68 degrees. I primed with 1/2 teaspoon of dextrose per 12 oz bottle. The bottles were also sanitized with the test sanitizer.
The next batch was also a Mr. beer recipe, the "May The Schwarzbier With You!". This was also fermented in the cooler at about 68 degrees. It has been three weeks in the keg. I was going to bottle at two weeks, but the gravity was really high at about 1.030. I used Muntons yeast in this because it was all I had. At the two week mark I gently shook the keg to get the yeast stirred back up and it seemed to work. The gravity is down to 1.024 and I will be bottling it today.
On Sunday I went to Great Fermentations, my Local Homebrew Shop. I got ingredients for two very simple, low alcohol recipes. I got a Scottish light 60 recipe and a breakfast stout. These were both recipes I got from northernbrewer.com but I modified them a bit and added some grains I thought would work well with each style. Sunday I brewed up the Scottish 60 and it went well. No issues whatsoever. I used fermcap s in the boil, it helped a great deal in keeping the foam down during the beginning of the boil. I added ten drops to the 2.5 gallons in the boil and the foam was kept to about 1/2 an inch and only covering about half the top of the brew. My initial intention was to get this for high gravity brews to keep the krausen under control so I dont blow the top off a bucket and spew beer all over my daughters closet.
Next up is a Breakfast stout. It will be low ABV as well, probably about 3% or so. I just wanted to get a few batches going as my pipeline was dwindling by the day. The Scottish and the breakfast stout are both 5 gallon batches that cost about 20 bucks each. I am really looking forward to the breakfast stout since it will contain flaked oats and lactose. Both will lend to a nice full, creamy body, but being only 3% abv it will also be easy to drink.