Monday, May 21, 2012

Kegged the new EPA

Kegged the EPA v2.0 the other day.  Tastes pretty good so far and I think it will get a lot better with age.  On the bad side, it kind of smells like cat piss.  I think it came from dry hopping with the citra whole hops.  maybe next time I'll do the "last 10 min of the boil" dry hopping instead of the "primary fermenter" dry hopping.  If I'm lucky the smell will mature with the beer and turn out the way I want it to.

I feel like I've been running into a lot of problems with off flavors and smells as of late.  Not sure if it's the water at my apartment or if its the equipment I've been using for the last 4 years.  I know it's not a sanitation problem because my methods of sanitizing haven't changed at all.  However, I have moved a few times and I stopped using spring water from the store like I was doing at the last place I lived.  So the first step will be going back to using spring water to brew with.

Monday, May 14, 2012

EPA take 2

So my first attempt at an English Pale Ale went south.  It wound up tasting like gas.  I let it age another 2 weeks and it didn't help matters any so I tried pouring half a glass of my Peanut Butter Porter with half a glass of the EPA.  That helped, but its still not a keeper that way.  I may be able to play around with the two beers and get something that works, but in the mean time, I brewed another EPA.  This one had no hiccups in the brew and I have high hopes for it.  Added about an extra pound of grain and am dry hopping with 1oz of Citra.  Racking it tonight.