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Beer Updates Posted under Beer on Saturday, March 8, 2014 @ 10:28:37 PM
Show Previous Article Show Next Article at the end of my last update, i'd just finished up my first homebrew project, an imperial ipa. unfortunately, i didn't take a lot of photos on brew day, but here it is being kegged after sitting in the primary for about a week: ![]() and then being sampled immediately thereafter. i knew it would be warm and flat, but i couldn't help myself. this was my first draft beer that wasn't made by someone else. ![]() i was very happy with the appearance and aroma. it tasted ok for being warm and flat, but that was probably just the taste of hope! as with anything i do, i'm a gear snob to the point of caring as much or more about the gear as i do about whatever the activity i'm using it for is, so naturally i *had* to build a kegerator. bottling my beer simply wouldn't do. here are some photos. this is a stand-up freezer with a brewer's edge temp controller. the controller has a probe which sits in a glass of water inside the freezer, where it monitors the temperature. the theory here is that the water in the glass will be the same temperature as the beer in the kegs. it cuts power to the freezer at 36 degrees and turns it back on at 40 degrees. ideally, beer is served around 38 degrees, and i felt this was a good balance between having a good serving temperature and minimizing wear and tear on the compressor by cycling it on and off too much. since the freezer is in my garage and is fairly well insulated, by my observations the compressor only kicks on for a few minutes an hour to maintain temp. i have two standard faucets plus a stout/nitro faucet. there's only room inside for two kegs, so i can only have faucets "live" at any given time, which is fine with me. i was able to leave the top shelf in place and between that and the shelving on the door, i have a fair amount of room to store bottled beer, which frees up some room in the inside fridge. you can see from the pictures that i really need a drip tray, i just haven't been able to bring myself to spend $75 on what amounts to $10 of stainless steel. ![]() ![]() speaking of room to store other stuff, here's some homemade apple cider i made a few weeks ago. unfortunately, it came out drier than i like, it tastes more like wine. i keep it around hoping i'll eventually have a guest that appreciates it. i got the idea for the cider from craigtube. it's dead simple, start with 100% apple juice, add some sugar and some yeast, put an airlock on and let it ferment. ![]() initially, i planned to keep the gas cylinders inside the freezer so i didn't have to drill any holes (and risk hitting a refrigerant line), but there just wasn't enough room so i bit the bullet and drilled access holes so i could run the gas lines out the side. i have a 5lb co2 cylinder and 5lb beergas cylinder sitting next to the freezer in a little wooden bracket to prevent them from tipping over. ![]() here's a shot of the ipa after it was kegged for about a week and had a chance to carbonate: ![]() overall, i'm really happy with how it came out. the bitterness is rated at 100+ ibus, which puts it on par with commercial brews like stone ruination (so named because of the immediate ruinous effect on your palate). which is great, because i really like beer that tastes like beer. the abv clocked in around 5.5%, so it's not so much that you can't drink a few in a session without being useless for the rest of the evening. the 15-20% stuff is fine, but i think they really only make it so hot because otherwise the buzz value just wouldn't be there at $15-40 a bottle. one drawback to having 5 gallons of a 100 ibu brew is you have to drink 5 gallons of a 100 ibu brew in a relatively short time period. while i certainly enjoy pungent beer, i hadn't really thought through drinking that much of it. having this much of it around has sort of turned me off to it for a while. they say hindsight is 20/20, and that seems to be true in this case, which segues perfectly into my next project... since i built my setup for two kegs, i needed to get working on the next brew. i decided to do a milk stout because 1) i like them, and 2) it's the polar opposite of the first brew i did. i didn't take a lot of pictures on brew day (something i need to remedy next time), but here are some shots of the beer coming out of the primary and going into the secondary: ![]() ![]() unfortunately, it was at this point that i hit my first homebrew snag. i had some beer-appreciating friends visiting about a week and a half after i brewed this batch so i decided to try and rush this one through fermentation to have it ready when they arrived. that turned out to be a mistake. the color and appearance are spot on, and the flavor profile was pretty good, unfortunately the body left a lot to be desired. in my own words, it came out as "beer flavored water". chalk this one up as a learning experience. i'll definitely try this recipe again sometime and give it a proper amount of time to finish. i brewed this about three weeks ago and it's still kegged, but i haven't been able to bring myself to drink much more than a pint or two. i think this batch is going to get dumped when i have to free up a keg for the next batch. speaking of the next batch, what i learned from the first batch is that it's fine to jump off the deep end and go crazy in terms of a really hoppy or really malty brew when you're at the pub and a bad decision will only haunt you as long as it takes to finish your pint, but when you've got 5 gallons of it that light at the end of the tunnel is a lot further away. this time, i decided to do an american cream ale both because it's a very middle of the road brew that just about anyone will enjoy and also because we're coming back to the warmer part of the year here in florida and this is the type of beer i think about drinking while sitting on the beach or on the back porch after mowing the lawn. i'm still waiting on the mail order ingredients to arrive, so i probably won't start it for a few days, but the good news is that right after i brew it i'll be heading out of town for 10 days so there will be no temptation to fiddle with it while it's doing its thing in the fermenter. coming back to being a gear snob, i ordered a propane burner so i can do subsequent batches outdoors instead of on the kitchen stove. while i haven't had a boilover happen to me (yet), the internet tells me it's only a matter of time, and after having seen one happen to my brother in law and then hearing how after three weeks he's still scraping burnt beer off his cooktop i decided that was not something i care to go through. the idea of being able to bring 5 gallons to a boil in a quarter of the time as on my stove is also appealing. plus it sounds like a jet engine, which always goes in the win column. ![]() an update on the next batch should be coming in the next few weeks! until then, sláinte! |