March 28, 2006

My Hops Out the Wazoo just keeps getting better and better.  The overly-foamy bottle may have been an anomaly, cause it was the only one out of 6 or 7 I’ve had so far that behaved so.  I had 2 last night and wanted to keep going, but the 7.4 ABV put a halt to that fairly quick-like.  I’ll definitely give this recipe another shot at some point.

March 27, 2006

A couple things from yesterday.  First, my Ordinary Bitter finished fermenting (from 1032 down to 1010), so I racked to secondary.  The hydrometer sample was pretty tasty, but nothing extraordinary.  Definitely one of, if not the lightest beers I’ve ever made, in color, body, alcohol and flavor.  Still, that’s basically what I was going for.

March 23, 2006

Had another of my “Hops out the Wazoo” IPAs last night.  It reminds me of my Hellesbock in that it’s pouring a HUGE foamy head.  Need to get horizontal with that mofo.  Anyhow, the head was a bit raw and overly hoppy.  Underneath, though, was a different matter entirely.  While it still needs some aging, it’s shaping up to be a very fine IPA.  Nowhere near Ruination (of which it’s a supposed clone), but tasty enough in its own right.

March 20, 2006

So this is mostly in regards to Saturday, March 18.  I figured it would be a good brew day, so the previous night I ground up the grains for an Ordinary Bitter recipe.  Just shy of 7 pounds of grain, this was to be a pretty light, emminently quaffable brew.  Pulverized the barley, cleaned up the kitchen, and brought all the equipment upstairs.  The next day (Saturday), I’m getting everything going.  I’ve got some water boiled and sitting at strike temps.  I mash in and come a bit high on my target temp (wanted 152, hit about 156).  So I added some cold water.  A bit much as it turns out, cause now I’m at 140.  I keep adding hot water until the mash is both too thin, and I’m not quite at my target (I think I stabilized at about 150).  Ah well.  I let it rest for 45 minutes regardless.

March 14, 2006

This was a few days ago, but I tried a bottle of my IPA (Hops Out the Wazoo).  It was only about a week after bottling, but it was already showing good carbonation and head formation/retention.  Some of the sweetness I noticed from earlier hydrometer samples seems to have dissipated (unfortunately), and the aroma hops were far too strong.  It was like smelling directly from the hop bag, and had a very grassy aroma.  That should definitely subdue itself.

March 5, 2006

Bottled my IPA today. Again, I should have let it sit in primary longer.  It finished at 1.016, about 6 points higher than my target gravity.  Still, it tastes really great so far.  Dry hopping directly into the secondary may have been a bit of a mistake, though.  Tons of loose hops floating around, so I know quite a bit made it into some of the bottles.  I’ve got some ideas on how to avoid that with future batches, though.