brewing update: three in-progress
This evening, D, mediaprophet, and I worked on two of the beers. We bottled half of the NDH Ale, played with the second half, and racked the Dunkelweizen.
D and I decided that we wanted to start experimenting more with the beer, so I purchased two 3 gallon carboys from Austin Homebrew Supply.
NDH Ale: We planned to bottle half and age the rest with additional spices. 23 bottles of ale were created with little difficulty. We put the second half into one of the 3 gallon carboys with some additional spices.
1st Half's Final Gravity: 1.020
2nd Half's Additional Spices: .6oz orange zest, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp cardamom seed, .5tsp ginger
Dunkelweizen: It has been largely ignored and doesn't seem as fun as the Pumpkin or NDH Ales, but it's moving along and should hit our target finish date. We brewed on Columbus Day, but didn't have another plastic fermenting bucket (since we had brewed the Pumpkin Ale the day before). Instead we used a carboy with a blow-off tube. (Basically, a glass carboy with tube running from the opening to a bucket full of water. This allows foam and gases to escape without exploding the carboy or letting bad microbes into the fermenting beer.) For the first few days, this was very cool to watch as foam traveled down the tube and gurgled through the water. Then we kept pushing off racking the beer to secondary until today. We plan to bottle in about two weeks.
Original Gravity: 1.056
Pumpkin Ale: About a week ago (after a week of fermenting), we made an attempt to rack the beer to secondary. It had been fermenting in the plastic bucket, so we only found out as we were siphoning that the pumpkin had not completely settled. It smelled great, but we've decided to let it sit for much longer before attempting another transfer. I think we won't hit our target date for this one.
When it finally clears up, we plan to give this beer the same treatment as the NDH Ale, except with pumpkin spices...
I really should start taking photos of this process. It may make a little more sense.
D and I decided that we wanted to start experimenting more with the beer, so I purchased two 3 gallon carboys from Austin Homebrew Supply.
NDH Ale: We planned to bottle half and age the rest with additional spices. 23 bottles of ale were created with little difficulty. We put the second half into one of the 3 gallon carboys with some additional spices.
1st Half's Final Gravity: 1.020
2nd Half's Additional Spices: .6oz orange zest, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp cardamom seed, .5tsp ginger
Dunkelweizen: It has been largely ignored and doesn't seem as fun as the Pumpkin or NDH Ales, but it's moving along and should hit our target finish date. We brewed on Columbus Day, but didn't have another plastic fermenting bucket (since we had brewed the Pumpkin Ale the day before). Instead we used a carboy with a blow-off tube. (Basically, a glass carboy with tube running from the opening to a bucket full of water. This allows foam and gases to escape without exploding the carboy or letting bad microbes into the fermenting beer.) For the first few days, this was very cool to watch as foam traveled down the tube and gurgled through the water. Then we kept pushing off racking the beer to secondary until today. We plan to bottle in about two weeks.
Original Gravity: 1.056
Pumpkin Ale: About a week ago (after a week of fermenting), we made an attempt to rack the beer to secondary. It had been fermenting in the plastic bucket, so we only found out as we were siphoning that the pumpkin had not completely settled. It smelled great, but we've decided to let it sit for much longer before attempting another transfer. I think we won't hit our target date for this one.
When it finally clears up, we plan to give this beer the same treatment as the NDH Ale, except with pumpkin spices...
I really should start taking photos of this process. It may make a little more sense.