Drank the last Abbot’s Habit tonight. Lost a lot of its character along the way. I’ll definitely brew another dubbel, though I likely won’t be following the same recipe. At the very least, I’ll incorporate the judge’s notes (more Special B) and use a proper yeast strain.
(more…)
June 28, 2006
June 28, 2006
June 27, 2006
June 27, 2006
I’m thinking it’s about time to bottle the Alt, but just look at the list of things that need to happen to get there!
Take the Alt out of lagering. Bring it up to room temp for 2 days for a diacetyl rest. Is that accurate? Something like that. So if I brought it out tonight, it would maybe be ready by Friday.
Clean and bleach the utility sink.
Sanitize 54ish bottles.
Sanitize the bottling bucket, hoses, bottle filler, hydrometer, test jar.
Make priming solution.
Bottle away!
Oh, and I guess a couple other bottles in my collection would be the Fuller’s 2000 Vintage Ale and the Holy (gr)Ail.
June 19, 2006
June 19, 2006
This previous weekend was Father’s Day, and a couple beer-related things of note transpired.
On Friday, I stopped by Shoreline (a place I frequent far too often) and picked up an assortment. Rochefort 10, St Bernardus Abt 12 and another Fin du Monde. All but the Fin I’m planning on just holding onto a while, build up a sort of collection. They now sit next to a Rochefort 8 and a Stone Old Guardian barleywine. Not much, but it’s a start.
(more…)
June 14, 2006
June 14, 2006
So I transferred the mead to secondary last night. Gravity was at 1.022, down from 1.114. It’s fallen about 2 points since I last checked, 2 or 3 weeks ago. I’m going to try to hit Karp’s over the weekend, so I’ll try to pick up some champagne yeast to restart it if it doesn’t move in the next month or so. Target was 1.010, so I’d still like to drop it 12 points. Still, it’s at 12.65%ABV right now, but rather sweet. Seems to be mellowing out, so it should be quite good in 5 or 6 months.
(more…)
June 10, 2006
June 10, 2006
Went to Children’s Day New York today, which really has nothing much to do with beer. Except that there was Heartland Brewery down at the South Street Seaport. Didn’t get to check it out, but we’ll be going back in a few weeks, and hopefully will be able to then. Also, for “dinner”, we ate at basically a big mall food court, but it was so crowded that we couldn’t find a place to sit, except there was a bar there, and the guy was nice enough to let us sit there since we ordered some beers. Cindy had a very nice Hoegaarten, and I had a Blue Point Springfest ale (or something) that was severely lacking in carbonation. The Ho was good, though.
June 9, 2006
June 9, 2006
Received the feedback/score sheets from my NHC 2006 entries. Good comments by the judges, and some good points regarding things to work on. The certificates should arrive in a separate mailing, though I’m unsure when.
June 8, 2006
June 8, 2006
I just had an idea for a ProMash plugin – ShoppingList. Select any number of recipes, and it will calculate the grains/hops/yeast/misc you need for all of them. It will even compare it to what you have in inventory, and give you a list of everything you need. Maybe even some approximate calculations for pricing. Could be pretty cool.
[LATER]
So I took another gravity reading, and the Alt is still sitting at 1.015. Into the secondary it goes! Racked to another carboy and stuck it in the fridge, where it will sit quietly around 42 degrees for another 4 weeks or so.
June 7, 2006
June 7, 2008
So I posted on the AHA message board about not receiving my scorecards yet, and were my beers actually judged, and blah blah blah. They were nice enough and got back to me pretty quickly. Turns out they did make it, and were judged, and two of them scored quite well (probably 4th or 5th in their category, just BARELY missing passing the first round!!). All of them scored well enough for certificates, so I can’t wait to receive my package. Here are the scores, as they were relayed to me:
(more…)
June 5, 2006
June 5, 2006
I just thought of something regarding my “92%” efficiency… If 1.061 is the “potential” in ProMash when set to 75% efficiency, then wouldn’t my 1.056 be 92% of 75%? Or 69%. Do I want to look more closely at that (and also see for sure what I have ProMash set to for efficiency…) or just plod along, chanting “92%!! 92%!! In my head all day!!”?
(more…)
