Continue reading]]> So, for Father’s day I decided it was about time to bottle my pale ale and my mead.  15 gallons of bottling- no problem, right?

Bottles drying in dishwasher

So, I began with the mead.  5 gallons sitting in the carboy since December and ready to bottle.

Ruby Hooker Mead in carboy

I transferred the mead to my bottling bucket and took the final gravity.  1.012.  Given that the original gravity was 1.124, the alcohol content on this bad boy is 14.7%.  FOURTEEN POINT SEVEN PERCENT!!!!  Holy cow, I’m going to have to be careful with this one!

Added 3/4 cup corn sugar and bottled it up.  The taste was a lot less sweeter than I thought it would be.  I got a lot of tartness from the raspberries and a hint of dryness.  Seems like my yeast might have done it’s job a bit too well.  Still should be good, though.  Here’s what it looks like in the bottle:

Ruby Hooker in the bottle

Now, doing the Liberty Pale ale was interesting.  I had some helpers to bottle it with me.

Greggory and Josiah bottling

It took a long time to bottle this one, as I had two fermenters full of beer and each one had to be transferred to my bottling bucket separately and everything sanitized in between transfers.  The whole day started at around 2:30pm and ended at around 9pm, and that’s including cleanup.

The final gravity on the Liberty Pale ale was 1.012 on both batches (strange), so with a fudge of a starting gravity of 1.058 that gives me an alcohol content of 6.04% by volume.  Wow, turned out stronger this time. Possibly due to all that extra time in the fermenter?  Maybe. The nice thing is I have a ton of beer to tide me over for the next few months, which will give me time to brew and age my next beer- a Belgian style.  Stay tuned!

Ruby Hooker Mead label

Continue reading]]> Saturday (May 21st), I decided to do two things at once: Brew a 10 gallon batch of beer and bottle my wife’s Framboise.  Well, they don’t call be crazy for nothing.

I decided to redo my Liberty Pale Ale, since the first time I did it it was so stinking good.  Alas, I didn’t have any Centennials for bittering hops, so instead of .75oz of Centennials I did 1oz of Cascades.  I like Cascade hops anyways.

Liberty Pale Ale Ingredients

I doubled my original recipe, and being lazy rather than doing the whole thing in my great big new pot I just did two separate batches in two separate pots, with the exception of the mashing, which I did in one pot.

Josiah, My Little Helper

Grains Mashing

If you want my original recipe, go here.  I did the standard 45 minute single temp mash, sparged my grains the lazy man’s method, since I didn’t have enough grains to justify using my lauder tun.  Then I divided the wort between my two pots, added water, and brought to a boil.

Two pots of wort

While things were waiting, I got ready to bottle.  I sanitized my bottling bucket and bottling equipment and my beer bottles.  Then I pulled the Framboise out.

Framboise in the fermenter

I transferred it into my bottling bucket, and it was a magnificent color.  I would call it a rose color.

The color of Framboise

Now, here was the interesting part.  I was given some advice from the helpful people at Steinbarts.  They suggested using some Torrani syrup at bottling time.  I bought an entire bottle of raspberry torrani syrup, and not knowing how much to add, I added the entire bottle to my 5 gallons.  Then, in a moment of insanity, I added 1/2 cup of corn sugar as well.

Now, some of you may know that the #1 ingredient in Torrani syrup is cane sugar, but I was in such a rush that I didn’t read this until after the fact.  I figured it had some sugar, but not that much!  I’m pretty nervous now about how carbonated my bottles will be, and whether any of them will burst.  Plus, all that sugar made it taste way too sweet.  I really hope it mellows out over time.

Framboise in the bottle

Final gravity turned out to be 1.012.  Original was 1.068, leaving me with an alcohol percentage of 7.35%.

Now, after rushing ahead (bottling was the last thing I finished), let’s get back to the brewing.

I added my 7lbs of light malt extract to my pots and 1oz of Cascade hops to each.  After 45 minutes I added .75oz of Liberty hops to each along with the last of the Irish Moss I have.  Then with 5 minutes remaining I added another .75oz of Liberty hops.

I transferred both to fermenters, topped them off to 5 gallons, and waited till Sunday to pitch the yeast.  Initial gravity was slightly different between both (1.056 and 1.060), so I’m going to average it out to 1.058.  Obviously there’s a lack of consistency here between the two.  Guess I should have taken the time and used my big pot.

Along with the yeast I pitched my Clarity Ferm, which will give it a nice clear look and lower the gluten levels in my beer.  This will be one I can share with my gluten free friends.

Continue reading]]> Last night (10/13/2010) I finally got around to bottling my Liberty Pale ale.  I had run out of the regular sanitizer solution I use, so I resorted to a Papazian suggestion:  Using bleach and then rinsing with hot water.  Sampling the beer I was glad to not notice any bleach in it (thanks, Charlie!)  I did notice it wasn’t quite the same as my first batch.  I expected some differences, given I didn’t use the Munich malt, but it seemed…. different.  I will have to wait till it finishes bottle conditioning to really evaluate.

Final gravity came out to 1.012, giving an alcohol by volume of 5.25%.    Should be good still, despite the slight differences between the first batch and this one.

Next beer on the list:  A Belgian dubbel.  Stay tuned!

Continue reading]]> Friday afternoon I decided I was going to make some beer.  So, I grabbed the kids, threw them in the van and headed off to Steinbarts.  On the way, I began to ponder what beer I would make.  Hmmm….. I was tempted to redo my standard hefeweizen (i.e. my half-a-weizen), but I began to think about what I wanted to drink right there and then, and I decided I wanted a pale ale.  Now, my Liberty Pale ale was quite exceptional, but I didn’t have the recipe in front of me.  Aww, who cares, right?   This is beer, not rocket science.  So at the beer store I grabbed 7 lbs of light malt extract syrup and 1 lb of 20 lovibond crystal malt.  I also grabbed some Safale US-05, and a new beer magazine and a new spigot for my bottling bucket.  It seems my lazy man method of cleaning the spigot has resulted in a few funky batches.

Armed with my ingredients, only slightly different from my original Liberty recipe, I began my brewing on a beautiful Saturday morning (September 25th to be exact.)

Mashed the crystal malt for 45 minutes at 145 degrees, strained and sparged them using the lazy man’s method (particularly effective with small amounts of grain.)  I then added more water, brought it to a boil and added my malt extract.  Using my hops bag, I stuck with the original hop schedule as my original Liberty Pale Ale (.75 oz Centennials for 60 minutes, .5 oz Liberty for 15 minutes, .5 oz Liberty for 5 minutes.) I also used some Irish Moss to help settle anything out I don’t want in.

All went well for the boil.  I transferred the wort to my fermenter and topped it off to 5.5 gallons (I thought it was at 5 gallons, but I had the bucket at an angle.)  Aerated and pitched the yeast today, getting an initial gravity of 1.052.  Should be ready to bottle by Friday, so I’m hoping.  Talking to my boss about making a Belgian Dubbel next weekend.

Continue reading]]> On Tuesday the  18th my brother in law and I bottled up both batch 29 and 30.  Given that both of these recipes used Liberty hops exclusively, I decided (albeit in a hurry and forgetting the names I had previously come up with) to give both beers names keeping with the spirit of liberty.

Liberty Pale Ale

Liberty Hefeweizen

We started the bottling process around 2PM and finished around 4:30PM (of course, cleanup lasted a tad bit longer.)  We started with the pale ale, getting about 54 12 oz bottles and two 22oz bottles out of it.  Final gravity came out to be 1.010, giving an alcohol by volume of 5.25%.

The hefeweizen we got a lot less bottles, 44 12oz bottles and two 22oz bottles.  When we started transferring the hef, I noticed the sediment wasn’t very compact, and there were a few bubbles rising.  Uh, oh.  Looks like it didn’t finish fermenting.  To compensate, I only added 1/2 of my corn sugar I normally would for bottling.  Final gravity came out to 1.016, but given the unfinished state of the fermentation I would guess it would be closer to 1.014.  With the 1.016 figure the alcohol would be 5.8%, with the 1.014 figure it would be 6%.  Either way, it’s stronger than the pale ale.

I’m giving these guys a week and 3 days in the bottle before I start serving them, due to an upcoming get together with some friends on the 29th.  I’m hoping they’re good enough to drink by then, cause I’m drinking them then.

Continue reading]]> Today had some friends over and we brewed two beers simultaneously.  Been thinking about what to brew for a few days, knowing today was coming, and was having my normal difficulties of deciding.  I knew I wanted a pale ale but didn’t care for the recipes I’ve seen, and I wanted to use my Liberty hops.  So, I made my own recipe for a pale ale, plus I decided on doing a hefeweizen ala Widmer style.  But, none of the pseudo Widmer clone recipes I cared for, so I made my own, since I wanted to use Liberty hops in that as well.

So, here are my recipes:

Brett’s Liberty Pale Ale (6 gallon batch):

7 lbs light malt extract syrup
1 lb British crystal malt (40 l)
.5 lbs Munich malt
.75 oz Centennial Hops (60 min-bittering)
.5 oz Liberty hops (15 min left- flavor)
.5 oz Liberty hops (5 min – aroma)
Safale US-05 yeast

Brett’s Half A Weizen (5 gallon batch):

7 lbs wheat extract syrup (60 wheat/40 malt ratio- thanks, Steinbarts!)
1 lb white wheat malt
.5 lbs Munich malt
1.5 oz Liberty hops (60 min – bittering)
.5 oz Liberty hops (5 min – aroma)
Safale WB-06 yeast

Doing both batches at the same time went well, especially since I had two helpers, Jeremy and Mike, both of whom thoroughly enjoy my home brew, and Mike in particular is displaying interest in doing it himself.

We mashed the grains in about 1/2 gallon of water at 150 degrees for 35 minutes (at one point we got to talking and the temp spiked on both, so we quickly added a bit more water to bring the temp down quickly).  We sparged the poor lazy man’s way, since there weren’t enough grains in the pots to justify dirtying my lauder tun.  Then we added more water, added 1/2 the malt extract syrups, our bittering hops, and away we went.  Once both batches had 15 minutes left we added the rest of the malt, and I nearly burned myself when the malt bucket handle broke and dropped into the pale ale.  Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt badly by the water splashing on my foot.  Also added the flavor hops to the pale ale at this time.  With 5 minutes left, added the aroma hops on both.  Once the boil was done, removed the heat, strained the hop pellets out, and poured into the fermenters.

Tomorrow morning I will aerate both, take the gravity, and pitch the yeast.  Then, will need to come up with clever logo’s for the bottles.  I’m having a get together with a bunch of friends on the 29th, so hoping these beers are good and ready by then.

Update:  Initial gravity on the pale ale was 1.050.  Initial gravity on the hefeweizen was 1.060.  Both smell wonderful and taste pretty darn good as they are.  Going to be some fine beers!