In other beer news I did end up bottling the wit bier and it tasted great coming out of the fermenter! I could already see improvements over my last one. I noticed in my last beer I, out of habit, added some whirlfloc which causes the beer to clear up where as a traditional white beer gets that foggy like whiteness from all the proteins and haze so I didn't use any fining materials this time and also didn't use a secondary fermenter. I also cut back on the coriander because that stuff can realllllly take over. And I also decided that I'm glad that I used the Trappist High Gravity yeast because I think how dry that out of control yeast made it will really add to the crisp refreshingness (that's a word) and give the esters and spices the main stage.
I also got 2 more kegs which turned out to be a great idea. The guy I got them from apparently gets them straight through Pepsi (they are 5 gallon soda kegs) and so they're super cheap and he told me to hold onto his number and I could get more any time! Awesome, I have an empty soda keg dealer hahaha
Black Hole got brewed up on Tuesday and things didn't really go so well. First off I was going to rack the Le Saison Du Le Space over to the secondary on last Monday so that when I brewed on Tuesday I'd already have a clean primary fermenter to rack the stout into, but I ran into a good friend and we ordered pizza, played video games and drank Lagunitas IPA instead...oops. So the beginning of the day was rather hectic. I woke up early to get a good start and of course it was raining, windy and crappy out, and of course this coaxed me back to sleep. When I got back up closer to 11 Alli and I went out to lunch and I debated whether to brew or not and decided I might as well. I'm going to have to get used to brewing in the rain. I brew outside and live in Seattle, there's little I can do about it :) PLUS I totally scored at Joe's going out of business sale again and got a really nice 10 x 1o foot canopy for 40% off! So, I got all started around 1 I believe and the weather wasn't actually that bad. I was moving around a lot so it didn't seem that cold but there was a good wind and some sprinkles of rain. It was kinda stressful at first but I was able to get all set up, get the mash going, and get the saison racked with out any issues. I added the CaCO3 as well to see how that balanced everything out. Then I sparged out my 7 gallons and everything looked perfect. I began to get the wort heated up and then it just stopped. I think it was the temperature outside, or the wind blowing out the flame on my burner, or the heat escaping out of the pot with out a lid, or something but I couldn't for the life of me get the damn beer to a boil! It just hovered between 180 and 182 for nearly an hour and a half. So I finally got incredibly frustrated and impatient and found a piece of cardboard and put it on top on the pot with a rock, let it heat up to around 195-200 and just threw in the boiling hops and am hoping for the best. I'm not sure of the specifics on how not have rolling boil will affect the final beer. My guess is that it will be a more concentrated beer due to the 2 and a half hours it steamed off and I will get lower hop utilization because of that and because of the lower heat. In thinking about this I did actually upped my hop addition by about .3 ounces. I've got my fingers crossed and figure that if it doesn't come out all that great it will be a lesson learned and a perfect beer to join the saison as trial brews to enjoy exclusively at The Space. I took a few pictures, but can't seem to find my camera....
Something I think I forgot to add to the last blog also is that I made it down to Big Brew at Larry's! Well, sort of. Basically traffic was a complete disaster. Bridges were closed, construction, rallies through the street, parking lot like traffic. Everything went wrong. So I was able to be in a car for 4 hours and at Larry's for 30 minutes. I didn't see anyone I knew except for the guy who I believe brews at Georgetown who's name I can never remember. Impressive set ups though and it's ALWAYS nice to see the huge system in the back of Larry's brewing. It smelled soooo good.
So, it's bed time for this guy. I'm really excited about the competition in Corvallis and will be having a Black Hole brew day 2 on Wednesday. And if you're in the area I'm going to invite who ever to swing by and try my saison with me and maybe sample a few other beers as well.
CHEERS TO BEERS!
edit: I found my camera and here's the set up getting the strike water heated with the canopy-
2 comments:
Right on man! I was down there to help judge the first round and there were a TON of stouts, so yours definitely made an impression.Keep up the good brewing!
Hey Kyle, awesome job with the Stout! Keep up the good work and hopefully I'll see you at the next meeting sometime!
Cheers
Greg
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