Continue reading]]> Last Friday (12/11) I was finally able to get to bottling my two batches of beer, my Holiday Cheer and my Unspoken Passion Imperial Stout (batches 33 and 34).  I had originally planned on transferring the stout to a secondary to help it settle, but with my time limitations I just went straight to bottling.

Now, doing this all by myself took way too long.  I started getting things ready to bottle at 7:30pm and wasn’t finished until 12:00 am.

Holiday Cheer Beer Label

Bottling the Holiday Cheer, the final gravity came out to 1.016 for an alcohol content by volume of 5.775%. The flavor was oh so yummy, but the orange peel bitterness was more pronounced than last years batch. I am really hoping it tones down after some aging, as that was the one thing last year that I wanted mellowed as well. At least I know now how to better gauge the bottled orange peel spice.

Unspoken Passion beer label

Now, the Unspoken Passion was more of a pain.  The one beer I’ve had the most trouble with.

I began transferring the beer into my bottling bucket, which is 6.5 gallons.  I topped the bucket off and had a bit of liquid left still.  I used 1 cup of corn sugar for bottle conditioning rather than 3/4 cup due to the volume.  Final gravity came out way too high, 1.030 for a final alcohol of 7.09%.  I expected this to be much higher.  I did lose a lot of malt extract with my boil over, though.  Also had I transferred it to a secondary and let it finish fermenting there it would have no doubt been lower.

The flavor on this was … wow!  Once it finishes bottle fermenting it’s going to be an awesome beer.  Now, if only Santa would bring me a bigger brew kettle, then I won’t have troubles with this beer in the future!

Continue reading]]> Today I brewed batch 17, a remake of the Buckingham Bitter. 

A few slight differences in this one, namely when we went to buy the same British crystal malt, there were now two varieties of different color.  A 30-40 lovibond color crystal, and a 50-60 lovibond crystal malt.  We got the 50-60 lovibond one, though some conversation occured as to what we got before. 

Another difference in this batch is that I used some Irish moss in it to help settle it.  I also think I got a touch more bittering hops in than I should have, given the inaccurate scale I have.  But, a 1/4 oz difference won’t affect it much (in fact, it might make it better!)

Tomorrow I pitch the yeast and take the initial gravity (though not in that order.)  Can’t wait to drink it.

I’m also debating on making a holiday beer to hand out for Christmas.  I’d better decide fast, before I miss the window of brewing opportunity.