How Beer Gets Its Color

How Beer Gets Its Color 

I love Popsci for so many reasons but the best one still is the fact they have a BeerSci section! They so ROCK!!! This article is about how beer gets it coloring... very cool article:

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.

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:

Brewing With Cocoa

By K. Florian KlempPublished January 2010, Volume 30, Number 6

New brew

So we stopped by the brew shop today. We were able to taste two beers. One was the whiskey stout the other a pumpkin spice porter. My next beer will be the whiskey stout for sure but I am thinking a pumpkin spiced cream ale as well. Any thoughts?

11/19/2012
The guys at Anuway actually added unfermentable sugar to this brew. It gave it a slightly sweet taste on the front of the tongue and the familiar bit of a stout on the back of the tongue. It was very nice. I to believe I will be picking this kit up in a week or so to start a brew of this.

Connection between Hops and Marijuana?

Hops Plant

          OK I wasn't so sure about this article until I read it. Now I find this subject very interesting! And the mad scientist in me wants to know what would happen if you actually used both in a beer brew!!!

          Anyone out there in CO or WA who are brewers want to give this a try? Could make a most interesting beer for sure!

Hmmm foamer beer?

BeerSci: How To Make Beer Foamier

   This is an article I was reading on PopSci and thought I would share... thought it was most interesting!

          The article is well worth reading. Take a few minutes and read. I an so betting into this whole brewing things. Anything I find I will make sure to share through the blog posts.

New supplies... so excited!!!!

          So this evening I am going to pick up two Ball Lock Soda Kegs so I can start using them for some of my beers. Though I will still be bottling some of the beers, I want to get to the point where I have beer ready sooner, especially seasonal type beers. One Saturday I am picking up a small deep freezer. The brewing shop has a device that will allow me to control the temp of the freezer so it will be perfect for my kegs... AND making lagers... that one I am really excited about as I love a good lager.

11/13/2012

          I picked up the two 5 gallon ball lock kegs and two liquid connectors. Got them for $90. from all the sites I have been looking on that is pretty darn cheap for the two. They are in great shape... a little scuffed on the outside but all the connection ports and seals are good. The guy even had them cleaned really good. Next week I am going to go ahead and pick up a seasonal beer and a whiskey stout beer (it has chips from a whiskey barrel for flavoring... this should be AWESOME).