Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Oktoberfest Bottling Day

On August 22, 2011

After 7+ weeks in a glass secondary carboy, it was time to bottle up the Oktoberfest from the Oktoberfest Duel.

As much as I would like to do away with the whole bottling process, I do have it down pretty well. I feel like I have a good routine to get everything sanitized and ready to bottle in an efficient manner.

Some notes from the bottling day:

The beer had a good color and was crystal clear in the siphon.
The malt aroma was there – quite present. I have brewed a Maibock and a Rauchbier and I finally got a malt aroma right off the bat as the bottling bucket filled.
Since this is the first beer I have made with Vienna malt, I wonder if that malt is the one giving off that aroma.
This is the first time I am using the Oktoberfest yeast and not the German Lager Yeast so that may have something to do with the pronounced malt aroma.

Anyway – it looks like I done brung it to this duel. There is a smoothness to the flavor as well that makes me not want to brew an ale ever again (just kidding). As long as everything goes well in the bottle, this Oktoberfest will be pretty tasty.

Kegging Your Homebrew

By Mike

On August 12, 2011

In Beginner, Equipment

I have been kegging my beer for about 8 years. I kicked the bottling habit and never looked back. Time and convenience are the top priority in my brew house these days (especially with two little ones to chase around). I greatly appreciate the process of cleaning out one big bottle instead of 50 or so small ones. Because kegs are sealable, I can clean sanitize and seal it up until I am ready to use it. Unlike bottles where I prefer to sanitize them the night I bottle. And there is nothing better than heading out to the garage with my favorite stein, snifter, mug, pint glass or bucket at the end of a hard day and pour a draft beer. Perfectly carbonated to your own preferences, crystal clear and cold. Not to mention after you drink a bucket worth of beer you can go back for a half bucket if you need just a little more to top yourself off. I always felt like it was a waste to open another 22oz beer when I only really wanted a couple more sips to wash down that last slice of pizza.

OK, I am making myself thirsty…where’s that bucket?

John and I are going to cover a series of posts on making the move from bottling to kegging. John is still a devoted bottler. But even he is starting to crave that convenience of one big stainless bottle. We are going to cover the basic equipment, carbonation levels, balancing your system and even adapting a chest freezer to a kegerator. We’ll going to walk through all the parts and the process.

And of-course we’ll have to pour a couple pints along the way too.

BREW ON!

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Harvest Ale Recipe

By John Krochune

On August 9, 2011

In Recipes

It appears we are going to have enough homegrown hops for a couple of brews this fall. This is a recipe that I whipped up – it doesn’t really fit any category – but I used the American Amber numbers as a guideline for the outcomes.

It’s more of an experiment to show off the hops and to try out some specialty malts. Plus, I’ll get to try out the East Coast Ale strain.

I am going for a red color so you’ll see there is a tiny bit of roasted barley added to the grain bill. Along with the CaraRed and the Melanoidin, it should be red – at least on paper.

Harvest Ale Recipe

Ingredients:

10 lbs 2-Row Malt
.5 lbs Melanoidin Malt
.5 lbs Weyermann CaraRed®
1 oz Roasted Barley
.5 oz Magnum Whole Hops boiled 60 mins.
.5 oz Mt. Hood Whole Hops boiled 15 mins.
.5 oz Mt. Hood Whole Hops boiled 1 mins.
Yeast: White Labs WLP008 East Coast Ale

Outcomes:

Original Gravity: 1.056
Final Gravity: 1.013
Color: 12.44 °SRM
Bitterness: 34.8 IBUs
Alcohol (%volume): 5.6%

Instructions

Mash at 150°F for one hour. Collect 6 gallons of wort and boil for 60 minutes. Ferment 5 gallons for 2 weeks at 68°F. Carbonate to 2.5 volumes.

Belgian Witbier Bottling Day

By John Krochune

On August 8, 2011

In Brew Log

Here is an update for the old brew log. I bottled and primed the Belgian Witbier this morning and will follow up with a first tasting post although I have tasted this brew a couple of times over the past two weeks.

I took a check of it after a week of fermentation, just to see how things were progressing. The fermentation was pretty, uh, energetic. I had yeast in my airlock. The top of the better bottle fermenter had a nice layer of yeast all around it.

With that kind of fermentation, I wanted to check to make sure my sanitation practices were good. I didn’t detect any off flavors but the beer was young and the taste had some harshness to it.

I used a water bath to keep temperatures around 68 – 70°F for the first 2/3rds of fermentation and let it warm up for the last quarter.

I tasted it again this morning (I was really calm at work today – I wonder why) and the slickness of the oats was present. I think it will taste better when it is carbonated and chilled but I wasn’t unhappy with what I had at bottling.

It had a nice light yellow color – it was much lighter in the hydrometer tube than I expected. Again, let’s have a pint in two weeks and take some pictures with a nice white background and you tell me what you think.

Oh yeah, final gravity was 1.010.

And now we wait….

Wyeast 3944 – Belgian Witbier Yeast Strain

By John Krochune

On July 30, 2011

In Yeast

I have to admit, I tend to be a White Labs guy. For the Belgian Witbier that I brewed up, I ordered the Wyeast 3944 yeast strain because I didn’t think the yeast was going to survive the trip from Minnesota to my house via ground transport.

Wyeast’s pouch allows me to see how viable the yeast is before I pitch it. I was making a starter anyway, but I also wanted the piece of mind that I had healthy yeast to start with.

I smacked the pack and it wasn’t that inflated after three hours. I didn’t panic but I was beginning to put together a back up plan.

I made a 2 liter starter and pitched the pouch into it. After 24 hours, there wasn’t a lot of visible activity. I began to carve out some time to visit my Local Home Brew Shop.

After 36 hours, I saw krausen forming and by the time it was ready to pitch into my wort, it was really active.

A few things about this strain that I experience and read things online that backed up what I witnessed:

Slow starting. I was glad I made a starter 3 days before I brewed.
A real top cropper. Once fermentation started, it really started to foam up the top of my carboy. My airlock was filled with yeasty sludge.
I thought it had a mellow phenolic scent while it was working. Some people thought it really stunk bad. I’ve had lager yeast smell a whole lot worse. This strain smelled pleasant as compared to the sulfur bad egg smell I have encountered before