Friday, December 21, 2012
How Beer Gets Its Color
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Alcohol Content of Beers and Wines/Meads
One of the things I have been think about as of late with brewing is the levels of alcohol in my brews. How do I get them to the highest levels while keeping the integrity of the brew.
I do rely a great deal on my friend Larri. She is unbelievably knowledgeable about brewing. Here is what she told me about how to raise the levels of alcohol yet keep the integrity of the brews:
For Beer:
For beer, if you want to help raise the levels of alcohol, you need to add extra sugar during the creation of the wort. This will provide an extra boost to the fermentation. You can also add sugar to the secondary fermentation as well. if you would like.
For Wine/Mead:
For Wine and meads you can add sugar directly to the brew just before racking the wine and mead. I have taken a lesson from Larri and rack my wines and meads each month. So this would really give an extra boost each month to the yeast so that the levels of alcohol will rise.
Armed with this knowledge I will be giving some major boosts to my wines and meads during the re-racking in a few weeks.
I do rely a great deal on my friend Larri. She is unbelievably knowledgeable about brewing. Here is what she told me about how to raise the levels of alcohol yet keep the integrity of the brews:
For Beer:
For beer, if you want to help raise the levels of alcohol, you need to add extra sugar during the creation of the wort. This will provide an extra boost to the fermentation. You can also add sugar to the secondary fermentation as well. if you would like.
For Wine/Mead:
For Wine and meads you can add sugar directly to the brew just before racking the wine and mead. I have taken a lesson from Larri and rack my wines and meads each month. So this would really give an extra boost each month to the yeast so that the levels of alcohol will rise.
Armed with this knowledge I will be giving some major boosts to my wines and meads during the re-racking in a few weeks.
Chocolate nibs
I had a beer the other day that I fell in LOVE with. It was a Sam Adams Chocolate Bock. I talked with my friend Larri who is a brew master.
I asked her how she would go about making this kind of beer. She stated that she would first brew the beer and then add chocolate nibs to the secondary fermentation. So I am looking into that. I would really like to be able to add this into the process.
So I started looking into some of the forums for beer brewing. It looks like some of them roast the chocolate nibs at about 300 degrees to help kill off any bad bacteria that might be on them. This seems to also add a bit of roasted flavor to the beer as well. It seems that the time ranges from 1-3 weeks on them in the secondary fermentation process. I would add more sugar at this time as well and perhaps some of the un-fermenting sugar as well.
Just some of the thoughts I am having about new brews. Here is a great article on cocoa and it's use in beer:
I asked her how she would go about making this kind of beer. She stated that she would first brew the beer and then add chocolate nibs to the secondary fermentation. So I am looking into that. I would really like to be able to add this into the process.
So I started looking into some of the forums for beer brewing. It looks like some of them roast the chocolate nibs at about 300 degrees to help kill off any bad bacteria that might be on them. This seems to also add a bit of roasted flavor to the beer as well. It seems that the time ranges from 1-3 weeks on them in the secondary fermentation process. I would add more sugar at this time as well and perhaps some of the un-fermenting sugar as well.
Just some of the thoughts I am having about new brews. Here is a great article on cocoa and it's use in beer:
Brewing With Cocoa
Published January 2010, Volume 30, Number 6
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