Old Father Ale - started 2/6/2013

          I have decided to do my first flavored beer. I am using Best Brews American Cream Ale as my base. Then adding elderberry juice and oak chips.

• Elderberry juice 96 oz.
• Oak chips 4 oz.
• 5 cups of Sugar
• Lactose 1 lb.

American Cream Ale by Brewers Best

Contents of Kit:

• Ingredients
• Grain bag(s)
• Priming Sugar
• Bottle caps
• Brewing Procedures

Ingredients consist of:

Fermemtables

• 3.3 lbs Light LME
• 2.0 lbs Pilsen DME
• 1 lb Corn Sugar

Hops

• 2 oz Willamette
• 2 oz Aroma

Yeast

• 1 Sachet

Also will need:

• 4 gallon Brewing Pot
• 5 gallon Fermentation bucket and lid
• 1 Air lock
• easy clean sterilization solution

While the 2.5 gallons of water is boiling. I cleaned and sterilized the fermentation bucket, lid, and airlock. Once the water was at a gentle, rolling boil added the 3.3 lbs of Light LME. Continuously stirred extract into water as it returned to a gentle rolling boil. Added the DME, Corn Sugar, Lactose, and Sugar. Once that boiled I added oak chips to boil for 5 minute boil.

Cooled and added to the wort to the fermentation bucket then filling to 5 gallon mark.

2/10/2013
Add the Elderberry juice to a cleaned sterilized fermentation bucket. Then siphoned the American Cream Ale into the new bucket. The ale had an amazing smell. It was sweet and very aromatic. I could tell just from the smell the alcohol levels are a lot higher than my first American Cream Ale. It looks like this batch is going to be VERY purple. I can't wait to try this beer.

2/13/2013
OK this brew is still just bubbling away through the air lock! it started picking back up on 2/10 when I added the Elderberry juice in the secondary fermentation bucket. And it is STILL bubbling away. I take that as a VERY VERY good sign!

2/24/2013
Bottled this brew today. I am hoping that with aging and carbonation the brew will taste better. There is a heavy taste of Elderberry but much like the first Cream Ale it seems to be a bit off on taste. I added the but lactose but there does not seem to be a sweetness to it that I was expecting. There ended up being 57 bottles in total. In about a month I am hoping that the Old Father Ale will be ready.

4/24/2013
I have let this brew sit longer because it wasn't carbonating very well. It has now reached a nice level of foam when drank. Though it has a nice dry smooth taste, it did not turn out sweet like I had waned even using the lactose which does not ferment. I believe this is because the elderberry juice was so tart and concentrated that it over powered the delicate level of sweetness the lactose should have provided. So will have to try this again to see how it turns out. But everyone who has tried it seems to love it!

6/14/2013
There are still some bottles felt and I have to say this beer is aging nicely! And WOW does it have a ton of kick to it!!!

Tall Dark and British (TDB) - Started 1/20/2013

          John wanted to try the English Brown Ale. So we picked up the kit and starting the brew today. I love brown ales so it should be interesting to see how this turns out. This could be another great base for some other flavored beer ideas I have. This is a Brewers Best beer kit. I really had wanted to brew the Whiskey Stout but they were out of the kits.

English Brown Ale by Brewers Best

Contents of Kit

• Ingredients
• Grain bag
• Priming sugar
• Brewing procedures

Ingredients
     Fermentables

• 3.3 lbs LME
• 2 lbs Amber DME

     Specialty Grains

• 8 oz. Caramel 60L
• 4 oz. Chocolate
• 6 oz. Carapils

     Hops

• 2.5 oz. Willamette
• 1.0 oz. Bittering
• 1.0 oz. Flavoring
• 0.5 oz. Aroma

     Yeast

• 1 Sachet

Also will need:

• 4 gallon Brewing Pot
• 5 gallon Fermentation bucket and lid
• 6 gallons of purified water
• 1 air lock
• sterilization solution
• 5 cups of granulated sugar

As the wort was working to sterilize 5 gallon bucket, lib, airlock, and siphon. Once the grains were steeped and the wort started boiling I added the extra 5 cups of granulated sugar. Then I added the both the LME and the DME. The steeped oats were extremely dark. Placed the brewing pot into an ice bath to lower to room temperature. Siphoned the wort into the 5 gallon bucket, added water up to the 5 gallon mark on the bucket, then pitched the yeast. Placed lid and airlock on the bucket then filled the airlock with purified water.

1/27/2013
Moved this brew into a new bucket for secondary fermentation last night. I added 5 cups of sugar melted in purified water to the bottom of the bucket, allowing it to cool to room temperature before adding the brew. The beer is amazingly dark and had a nice rich smell to it already. I could also smell the alcohol in it where as the other brew I did you couldn't smell it yet. I believe adding the addition sugar to the wort has made a huge difference. I believe this will be something I continue to do with my beer brews.

2/10/2013
Readied the priming sugar. Cleaned and sterilized the bottling bucket, caps, and a mixing blade. I sterilized all the bottles (ended up needing 60 total). Once the priming sugar was ready I siphoned the English Brown Ale over into the bottling bucket. As it moved over I mixed with the mixing blade to make sure the priming sugar was evenly distributed through the mixture. As the American Cream Ale needed a moth to sit I am going to let this brew sit for abut a month and a half to two months just to be sure it primes and ages properly.

4/24/2013
This brew has turned out amazing. It has a nice strong brown ale taste which is rather crisp. It forms a head much like the dark stouts when poured. I can't wait to experiment with flavoring this brew.

6/14/2013
There are still some bottles felt and I have to say this beer is aging nicely! And WOW does it have a ton of kick to it!!!

Beer from a clear glass a bad idea? Why?

Beersci Logo Todd Detweiler

          Have always wondered why so many bottles for beer are brown or green. I figured it was something like why milk is best from a yellow opaque jug than from one the of the 'milky' semi transparent ones . I know with milk, sun light in any degree can destroy many of the nutrients contained within.

          So of course my favorite site POPSCI.com had an article that exampled it so well. The article talks about how sun light changes the beer and makes it 'skunky'.  Here is the article. Pretty neat read. Take the time to read it if you want to learn more about the 'no no' of using clear glass with beers. Now... I wonder if this holds true for wines and meads?!

BeerSci: Why You Should Never Drink Beer From A Clear Glass Bottle

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.