Finally got around to bottling the Rye IPA the other night (Aug 20), and boy is that sucker bitter! I’m hoping it’ll mellow out a bit over the next couple weeks. I was lower on bottles than I thought, so I had to mix it up pretty much. Used 8 22oz bombers, 14 of my older, heavier, nicer 12oz bottles, and the rest the newer, lighter, cheaper, not as nice 12ozers. Oh, and it did drop a couple more points in the three week secondary, so finished at 1.020. Target was 1.018, so it’s close but no cigar. From a start of 1.074, that gives… 73% attenuation.
Also racked the mead into a new carboy as well. Gravity hasn’t changed (still 1.020), but it’s getting very clear and tastes quite nice. I’ll probably bottle it in a couple months, rather than racking to yet another carboy. There was a bit of lees (yeast sediment) in the bottom of the carboy post-racking, but not a lot.
Tried a couple more of the weissbiers, and they were both way too sour. Took a sip and poured them out. I guess it’s an infection. I’m going to give it a month or so to see if it settles out before I dump the batch, though I may pour some of it out now to reclaim some bottles.
Got the ingredients for yet another batch, a Banana Oat Stout, so now I’ll have to decide what (and when!) to brew next. That or the DFH Indian Brown Ale clone. I also picked up a counterflow chiller that I have yet to use.
On a bit of a personal note, we went on vacation last weekend. We went to Connecticut (not far) for the Day Out With Thomas festival (fourth time now… PA twice, ME once, and CT once). We stayed in Meriden which was a pretty crappy little town. Found a liquor store that had an adequate selection of craft brews, and ended up visiting them 4 or 5 times while we were there. Delirium Nocturnum, Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse, Hoegaarden, some local IPA, and I think that’s it. The DN may have been a bit old, cause it wasn’t all that good.
Anyhow, we were supposed to come back last Monday. We checked out of the hotel and then went to play a bit of mini-golf prior to our short-ish drive home. After about 3 holes, pop-pop’s leg started really hurting. It got very bad very quickly, and we ended up callng an ambulance. Turns out he had a blood clot blocking an artery in his leg, so they had to do surgery to remove it! Then they kept him in the hospital for 6 more days to monitor him. They put him on Coumadin (a blood thinner) and Lipitor (anti-bad-cholesterol) and had to wait for them to become therapeutic as well.
Long story short, the hospital was very good, and the doctors were excellent. We had to stay in the hotel an extra six day, and board the dog an extra 7 or 8, so our short, cheap trip ended up being long and expensive.
Parts of it were fun, though. There was a small amusement park, Quassy, that we visited that I think was the most fun. Besides the rides (one of which broke just as we were about to get on it for the second time), there was a Saturation Station, basically a water park. The main feature there was a GIANT bucket that slowly filled up with maybe 1000 gallons or so of water and then tipped over and dumped on anyone standing below with enough force to just about knock you down. That was pretty cool. But the water was FREAKING FRIGID! We surmised that was to keep people from loitering, as you literally had to run from one spot to the next to avoid freezing.
