I brewed the Pumpkin Porter last night, the brew I talked about in my second post, and it was a blast. I'll have a fuller entry about that later, but first I want to post links to the FB photo galleries of my previous five batches. My brewing experiences range from "chicken with his head cut off" (during my first brew), to "I got this, this ain't nothin'!" (the two most recent), I've had varying success in bottling (better now that I've gotten used to syphoning), and I'm learning about environmental control during fermentation. Since I'm kind of blogging through photos and comments on FB, but now have this separate blog, I do want those who aren't on FB to experience what I share there.
On to the photos (with descriptions about the brews).
Batch #1: Everyday IPA; Feb 2012; 8 bottles made
This is the first batch, the one that got it all started. I bought Brooklyn BrewShop's kit, which came with the ingredients for their Everyday IPA, but no instructions! I guess they assumed you'd have their companion book. Since this was my first brew I didn't have the entire process in my head, and so when certain things went slightly awry they felt like major snafus. Now that I'm six batches in I know the basics of brewing and am able to do it without much thought, and so the whole process is more about the waiting than anxiety about what should happen next. This beer turned out very good, and a friend who's been homebrewing for over a decade complimented me in saying, "It's much better than my first batch." If I could keep a bottle from every batch for posterity I would, but then I would have less beer to drink!
Batch #2: Simcoe IPA; late April 2012; 8 bottles made
Another recipe straight out of Brooklyn BrewShop's Beer Making Book, this is a slightly different IPA that uses only one hop, as a exhibition of that one hop. The recipe is written with Simcoe hops, but I've recently bottled this same recipe but with Cascade hops and look forward to tasting it. Again, I wish I could have kept a bottle of this batch to compare to my more recent one, but I finished off the last bottle with my family on vacation this summer, and that was worth it. I went into this recipe with the idea of making several batches of it with a different hop each time, but I was tempted by the lure of "fancy" ingredients and a beer style with which I'm not familiar...
Batch #3: Spicy Jalapeño Saison; June 2012; 9 bottles made
I had no idea what a saison was going into this brewing, and I was not happy with the first bottle, but it did grow on me and I would happily brew it again, with or without the jalapeño. This was another recipe straight out of Brooklyn BrewShop's Beer Making Book, and with this recipe I learned about the hipster leanings of those authors (see my book review). This recipe called for two hops, Pacific Jade (Gem) and Sorachi. My local brew shop did not carry those varieties, and the man at the counter that day could not figure out suitable substitutions. I did some quick research via smartphone and decided to use the Simcoe I had leftover from my previous batch, and bought Citra hops there. The wort was very spicy as I used a whole jalapeño, but it was strained out going into the fermenter and the final product had more of a whisper of spicy kick, not the punch I was expecting. It also called for agave nectar, which I purchased and now have a half bottle sitting in my pantry. This beer was something that seemed interesting, was initially disappointing, but grew on me and was a good draught to enjoy during the warm summer.
Batch #4: Blueberry Ale; July 2012; 10 bottles made
Another recipe out of Brooklyn BrewShop's Beer Making Book, this is a red ale base that calls for blackberries, but says you can use whatever berry floats your boat. I love blueberries, so I went with those. I was to make a syrup of the blueberries with sugar over heat and let that cool, adding it to the boil and then straining it out pouring into the fermenter. The brew went well with no surprises, but it was really warm and I wasn't careful enough during fermenting to control temperature. This was brewed during the hottest part of the summer and temperatures reached into the 90s in my fourth floor walk-up. I didn't think this would have been a big deal because the intro page for the summer recipes in the Beer Making Book said that those recipes were designed for warmer temps, and I believed that. That may have been a mistake. In the end I don't think the beer overfermented, at least not that much, but I think the temperature did affect the fermenting. Also, I may simply not like red ale, no matter if I put my favorite berry in there or not. This might be brewed again once I've exhausted all other styles and recipes I come across, and I'll take better care to control fermenter temps that time.
Batch #5: Cascade IPA; August 2012; 10 bottles made
A first brewing repeat for me, but as I wrote above, I wanted to use this recipe to sample different hops, and with plenty of Cascade hops pellets leftover from a previous brew, I went with those. Another motivation for brewing this recipe again was that because of 1-lb grain purchases from my more local brew store, Warehouse Beverage, I had in leftovers all the grain needed for this brew except for the base malt Belgian Pils. That I purchased from The Brew Mentor, where they have most of their grains in bins and they weigh out exactly what you need, no need to buy grains in 1-lb increments and have lots of leftovers sitting in the fridge. One thing that bothers me about nanobrewing is the loss of liquid during the rack and then during bottling. I don't usually lose much during bottling, but racking, because of the yeast cake at the bottom of the fermenter, I might lose up to an inch of beer, which sucks because I'm not going to get more than 10 bottles of beer out of any batch! My long time brewing friend Pete told me he tops off the fermenter with boiled water (to sanitize and remove the chlorine) so that when he goes to bottle he gets the fullest number of bottle possible from a batch. So I did that. The morning I planned to rack I boiled plenty of water in a medium sauce pan, let it boil for about 10 minutes, and then let it sit there with the lid all day so that it cooled to room temperature before I racked that night. So when I racked and poured the partially fermented beer back into the cleaned and re-sanitized fermenter, I topped it off with the extra water so that it hit the ONE GALLON mark. And it worked! I got 10 bottles and then some when I bottled, and I can't wait to taste it in a couple of weeks.
Batch #6, the Pumpkin Porter, will get its own entry soon.
And that's that. Those are my first five batches of homebrew. I'm still learning and I realize something, pick up something, and try something new or different with every brew, and it's been a lot of fun. The best part is being able to spread this joy to friends, share tips and techniques and finished brews with fellow homebrewers, and during my last two brewings my downstairs neighbour has hung out with me, absorbing technique watching me do what I enjoy, and that's awesome.
Fellow homebrewers, what has been your favorite homebrew?
Until next time friends, happy brewing!
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