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I was told today is Blue Monday….well I guess not..lol
Jessica
Philma,
Two Things:
1. I keep my kettle in the basement and boil right there!
2. I try for lower ABV!
Been doing a lot more brewing during the sheltering. I have three in the bottle (Gruit, Cream Ale, IPA) and one in the first fermentation. The newest one is an American Pilsner that I flavor with green grapes. The Gruit was a first because it has no hops and uses cranberries. It came out – not exactly flat – but a quickly disappearing head – maybe low protein in the wort? It’s kind of sour – not my favorite, but my neighbor loves it. Do you do labels? The recipients of my gift-beer love my clever labels.
FAM
Falecia,
I love gruits, in fact I like a lot of sour beers. Sours aged in wine foeders are my favorite. Kettle sours come out too metallic, chelical-tasting, or just straight up citric acid. New Belgium makes dome wonderful sours.
I’m still pretty new to brewing, but I’ve had pretty good success so far. I was real happy with my Oktoberfest, and my Christmas Spiced Belgian strong dark ale. I just popped a hefeweizen I brewed in December that is pretty respectable. Got an amber ale in the carboy right now.
I’d love to try your beers! I’m enjoying it, but days like today where I had to do a 3+ hour boil to get my volume down (new 10-gallon mash tun, ended up with about 7 gal of wort) makes for a long day with set up and clean up. I cannot use my burner in our basement. I’d probably burn the place to the ground!!
I’m just hoping to hit my OG after all this. I’m hoping for 10%+.
Nice to know I’m not the only brewer here!
Felecia,
O.G. is 1.106. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble hitting 10%. Two packs of Wyeast 3787 Belgian High Gravity yeast, and I think we’ll be good. Fermenting around 65F-68F. I’ll post back in a few weeks with F.G.
In the words of my old friend Tom O’Keefe, “I’m a thirsty drinker.” The strong ones like the Boulevard Smokestack series are too potent for me. So I haven’t brewed strong ones either. I’ve had more fun monkeying with more exotic tastes. I’ve used mandarin oranges in second fermentation and pumpkin, banana, and tomato-basil in the boil with pretty good success. The Pilsner I boiled Friday and added the grape mash has been churning in the carboy like it has a motor. I used one of those enhanced liquid yeast packs and maybe the sweetness of the grapes is stirring it up. I’ll let you know. I usually try 6-12 bottles and give the rest as gifts. It’s too expensive to drink myself!
FAM
Falecia,
I would LOVE to try the tomato basil! Wow! I bet that grape beer is churning a lot with all that sugar. Mine is not roiling as much as I expected today – thought it would be overflowing my blow-off bucket, but I’m only getting about 40 bubbles a minute. Temp settled at around 66 degrees F, so maybe that’s why. The Old Ale I did before Christmas was exploding out the tube by this time. It ended up 11.5%. We’ll see how this goes. I might hit you up for dome advice!
Stephanie,
I like Gulden Draak and Samiclaus too. Used to sell a lot of those at the bar I used to work at. Rodenbach is also great! Their old head brewer was stolen by New Belgium years ago, and has since opened his own brewery in that town, Purpose Brewing (https://purposebrewing.com) that makes incredible beer. I have a Rodenbach Classic in my fridge right now. I love everything Belgian beer. Used to frequent a Belgian beer bar near my neighborhood in Baltimore.
I am partial to Rochfort 10, St. Bernardus ABT 12, and “Ressurection” (Belgian Strong Dark Ale) by The Brewers Art in Baltimore.
…and about 100 other Belgian or Belgian-style beers. Unibroue from Canada does some great beers!I can talk beer all night. Seriously, why don’t we have a CD Brewer’s (and beer lovers) group on CDH?
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