Brew school

Learning grains tonight.

Busy Busy Busy!

Updates!

So I have a Facebook page that came about oh a whim while brewing the Irish Stout. Already we have close to 30 likes and once we hit that, a random person is getting something special.

Recap:
Yesterday was a busy day at the Casa de Brewing.

We opened up the Wine to test the Gravity.

Gravity checks out OK so we Second rack it. This has gone from a purple grey color to this beautiful tan yellow color you see above.

From there my very understanding spouse politely asked for her kitchen back(read: honey get your crap out of my kitchen), and so bottling day was moved ahead by three days. Not really a big deal.

Just look at that beautiful color. This is the Imperial Blonde Ale that we added a pound of honey to. Creating :

"Dr. B's Honey Blonde Ale"!\



So yesterday was a very busy day for us at the house. I think we will start a Dunkle in a couple weeks. 

We have a Facebook Page

Come over and like us on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/ProjectAle

Its been a few days, but we got the Blonde ale racked into the secondary.

Here we have our Blondey out of its Blown off 6 Gal Carboy and 1lb of Honey has been added to the mix. I wish you could have been there to smell this thing. It was awesome coming out of the Carboy. But it was the best thing I have smelled from any ale I have made to date. I can still smell it when I think about it.

Here we are going from the Pale Ale to the secondary 5gal Carboy. Simple enough description. Look at the color of that beer in the hose. A thing of beauty. I'm getting thirsty already.



This is the new Blow off that I am using for the remainder of this Ale. A 1 inch rubber/plastic tubing fits right into the top of my Carboy's nice and snug like. From there it goes right into the Croc-Pot filled with clean water and back into the storage area for another few weeks.

So far this Ale is looking like it will be a success even with the blow off in the first. Thank you to Darren Link for laughing at my misery but also helping me get things back on track.

Fermentation Blow Off

So... After re-pitching the yeast and getting some actual fermentation, I checked the rack every day for a few days to make sure we were on track. Everything seemed normal so I decided I would space the interval of checks out a few days.

Check 4, all ok, next day smelled some beer, but thought nothing of it because I have had that in other brews that were a bit "Hoppy". Three days later I checked again..

Check 5:

Ya....

So thats where I am this week. After a consult from the Brewmasters I will either move to second rack tonight and toss in the pound of honey or I will trash this batch and start again.

Should we be successful in this, we should end up with a 9% ABV "Dr.B's Honey Blonde Ale"

Time to start brewing!

So I have done three or four partial grain brews now and this last one is baffling me.  The yeast didn't activate. I rechecked the OG it was the same as pre-pitch so I added some California Ale Yeast 0001.  We shall see when I get home if we have fermentation commencing. I hope so.  The second racking If all goes well with this one will add the sweet flavors and aroma of a pound of honey.   Hoping for 8-9% ABV on this Imperial Blonde Ale.  Pictures to come.