First OG brew

Just racked the Sore Looser IPA this afternoon. So far the gravity reading is close to where it needs to be and the taste is coming along nicely. There doesn't appear to be any bacterial infection, so I went ahead and harvested the yeast from the fermentor too. I am going to head down to Home Depot and price out some insulation materials to construct a 2 carboy sized cooler box to help with fermentation. The summer months are almost here and I'll need a way to keep my brews at the right temperatures.

In other news, the Peanut Butter Porter turned out ok. After one week in the bottles you could tell that it still needed more time. Now I'm at week 2 in the bottles and it's now tasting the way I thought it would. I just hope it continues to improve.

Next up is the English Pale Ale. Should be a good brew for a mild to cool summer night by a bonfire.

Back for More Heady Home Brew!

2 Years since my last major brew day and I have a new Peanut Butter Porter to crack open this weekend. It's also a new brew day Saturday. This brew day is something special, too. It's my first all original recipe and I have many many more to follow. I will be brewing a super IPA with tons of hops, some orange peal, and a dash of honey to keep it drinkable. After that, comes my new EPA. Another original. I will also be brewing a beer for my wife's family reunion in June. Still have to figure out what kind of brew that will be. After that comes my Summer School series. All easy drinking and refreshing brews for those hot and humid summer days in the sun. If all goes well with the original brews, I will be getting together with two of my good friends to dust off the business plan and get the micro brewery bus rolling again. Hopefully this time around we can get the funding needed to keep it rolling and we can open some time in the next year.

Way too much for me to handle

So the last batch of beer is proving to be way more than I can drink myself.  I need to through another party or 2 to get rid of it. I NEED EMPTY KEGS SO I CAN BREW AGAIN!  I'm just itching to brew some type of summer ale.  Anyone have any suggestions as to what the next brew should be?  I was thinking something floral and citrus.

Another hiatus over

Took some time off of brewing after the wedding.  Started getting that itch again and spending too much money on micro brews that I would pick up from Beers of the World.  So I got my brewing pants back out and hit the kettle hard.  The beer I'm brewing now is a 10gal Honey IPA with 8oz of hops.  should turn out to have a strong hop nose, smooth balanced middle and a pleasantly bitter finish.  Just got a new refractometer to measure with.  It seems to be a little inaccurate  it's hard to determine between 3 or 4 brix ware it reads so I just make a good estimation.  Still, there is far less wasted beer in the end, less to clean up, and It;s not nearly as fragile as the glass hydrometers.  That EPA from my last post turned out very well, by the way, and I will be brewing it again in the future.

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.

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.

Gettin' Back to Business

So, I picked up the new car about 2 weeks ago and have been driving it everywhere.

Now that I've started to come down a little from the New Car High, I can start getting back to business.  I will be kegging my English Pale tonight and using sugar instead of CO2 to carbonate the brew.  I've had too many issues with CO2 carbonating so I will only be using the CO2 to purge the keg of O2 and letting the sugar do the work for me.  Keep your fingers crossed for me and I will let you know how it turns out in another 2 weeks.  In the meantime, I will be brewing another beer because I have one more keg that I can fill.