How did anyone live without ubiquitous wifi? We had an oil change/inspection scheduled for today and I brought my Macbook just in case I could find a stray unencrypted network. When I turned it on, I was asked if I wanted to join the “Northtown Guest” network. Why yes, yes I would.
God bless you, intertubes.
A correction from my last post: I’m now assuming that the taste I don’t like is from using raspberry flavoring, some of which was added directly to the fermented wort before bottling; it’s too much of a manufactured taste for my liking, and I think it gives the beer an unprofessional sweetness. Ah well, I’m not going to use kits anymore and so any fruit additions can come from crushed fruit in the secondary from now on.
I’ve been wanting to go all grain/partial mash for a bit, and bought a 5 gallon cooler for the purpose. As I was reading up on what to do I briefly worried that I had gotten too small a cooler for going AG; while this is true, my brewpot is also too small for AG and so I’ll have to be content with doing partial mashes until I can get a suitable turkey fryer for outside AG batches. It’s still going to give me better beer and help me feel like I’m actually “brewing,” so it’s fine.
However, as my exuberance depletes my raspberry wheat supply I realized that I need to brew again; this desire is compounded by wanting to flex my PM muscles. Ideally, I’ll brew this Saturday but I’m not sure if I’ll be knowledgeable enough by then; I don’t want to totally screw things up. Then I realized if I don’t do it now, next weekend I’ll have to balance the urge to brew against that shiny new Halo 3 sitting in my 360.
Decisions, decisions…
It still has a bit of an “off” taste that I’m attributing to “extract twang,” meaning it won’t be a problem in future brews as I’ll be going partial mash using dry malt extract from now on. Additionally, there’s not much head retention, but you know what?
I brewed beer.
I got this from Elizabeth, who got it from MySpace. Eeeeeevil…
I’ve wanted something like this for a while — though pushpins are fun too — and so I’m willing to ignore the “tell all your friends and give us your personal information because data mining is fun!” aspects. We should buy a map after our next trip (we’re thinking Seattle), but it’s fun to try to one up each other: you can have Spain, honey, because I’ve got the entire Northeastern USA.
This past Saturday I opened another bottle of my raspberry wheat, which previously had been, um, sub standard. I was hoping it was just too green, and I must say I’m now damn happy with the results. It’s mellowed and blended, with very subtle raspberry flavor now. If I didn’t know that leaving it another week would make it even better, I’d have started handing the stuff out already.
The porter, though… it had a little carbonation, and wasn’t as sweet, but it still needs a lot more time. If it’s not ready next Monday I’ll have to store it longer and try one periodically.
I’m thinking the wheat needs a new label. It doesn’t “fit” as well as the smoking monk does for the porter. We’ll see.
Also, there’s been a cider chugging away for a week and a half now. It’s got the potential for one hell of an abv.
In addition to Synergy deciding that it doesn’t feel like working, meaning I have to type on two keyboards set up at odd angles, the construction on the bathrooms next door has hit “Loud as hell” status. I decided to record some of it so that others could share my pain:
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All in all, not getting much done today.
On Saturday, I tried the raspberry wheat, and on Monday I tried the porter. It had only been a week, and I knew that they wouldn’t be done for at least another two weeks; I was trying them so that I could get an idea of how beer changes while bottle conditioning, so that I can recognize “green beer” in the future.
God, I hope they’re green.
The wheat, which had no specialty grains steeped, started as what I can only (inaccurately) describe as “flavorless”: not medicinal, but not really like beer I’d say. It finished with a strong raspberry flavoring (rather than raspberry) flavor. I’m hoping/expecting — with good reason, I think — that the two will blend together, in which case I think it will be a fine beer. Not great, but I was never expecting it to be; just very good. On the plus side, it was well carbonated (gotta love wheat yeast) and had a great color.
The porter, on the other hand, was flat. It was also too sweet, which I’m assuming is the unfermented corn sugar’s doing. I’m hoping the yeast is just taking a little bit to start up again, and that it’s not caused by me forgetting to stir the bucket as I bottled. As long as it carbonates, and takes the sweetness down a few notches, it will be delicious. Again, not award winning, but this is my first damn brew so I’m cutting myself a lot of slack. It’ll age better than the wheat, so I have no problem storing it until it tastes better.
All in all, I’m cautiously optimistic. I don’t want bad beer, as I’ve promised it to quite a few people. But I don’t think it will be: it may be par, or slightly sub par, but even then its recipients (myself included) aren’t well-traveled connoisseurs and I’m sure it will turn out just fine.
There is currently a very interesting thread over at Olio (the very amusing message board); I started it to discuss an article on the world’s three most expensive beers, but it has since evolved into a few different things:
This is why I love Olio: in the midst of our general humor, there’s a great discussion of my new passion popping up. Oh, and then Robert Larkin insisted on calling Aecht Schlenterla Rauchbier, “Arglebargle Scheiss Wombat,” and made me wish I was brewing a rauchbier sometime soon so I could use the name.
Kopyleft 2006-2010 Dan Conley. All rites reversed.
