Bottling day!

Today we are bottling both Dunkels for KMO.

Brix for new Dunkel: 7.0 This gives us a final ABV of 4.47%. Pretty good for the style.
Bottle count: 49
Pre-carbonation taste: good. a little sweeter than expected but that should go away as it carbonates.


Brix for exploding Dunkel: 6.8 This gives us a final ABV of 4.98%.
Bottle count: 47
Pre-carbonation taste: it no longer tastes bad, it is now definitely drinkable.

Thats all for tonight :) Now time for clean up :)

Beer As Art results

It's official, our Bloodweizen was the crowd favorite at this Falls Beer As Art. Hellza bad to the ass. Thank you to everyone who came, and to those who couldn't make it, don't worry, we will for sure be at the spring event :) We have to defend ourselves afterall :)

Bottling Day

Bottling the bock for KMO. New brix: 9.2. This gives us an ABV of 6.7%. Yowza! A bit stronger than we thought it would be but eh, no one's complaining! And DAMN this beer tastes good! It's still flat (obv) but the initial taste test was great! We are very happy with the way this beer is turning out :)

exploding dunkel

brix: 6.5. Original brix was 12.4. This gives us an ABV of 5.2%.
We just decided to dry hopp this bitch.
Too late to go to the store so we're using what we have.
1oz Mt Hood Hopps. Cross your fingers for us!

note:

blue pillow case = new dunkel for KMO.

Updates

Transferring the new dunkel to secondary today. New brix: 7.1. This gives us a current ABV of about 4.4%. We're gonna let this sit in the secondary for a bit longer than we normally do. Normal for us is right about two weeks, so we'll check on this at 3 and decide if we want to bottle yet or not.
We 're gonna take a reading and do a taste test on the exploding dunkel. Not repitching. At least not yet. This beer is turning into an experiment.

mer mer mer :/

The dunkel exploded. We're redoing it tonight. Same exact recipe as previously. Just have to watch the fermentation a bit closer :P We decided to turn the exploder into a science project. We'll be adding campden caplets which should kill everything alive. Then we'll repitch next week. Who knows, maybe it can be saved, maybe not. This is all a learning process, right? mer :P

We are also bottling the Bloodweizen tonight. Thats around 100 bottles folks! crazy-ness-ness. (for the record, still has the same brix, same ABV of 5.4%). In hindsight, we should have bought a 15 gallon bottling bucket, the 10 gallon is too small :( again, mer mer mer :P

Transfer on the bock - new brix 10.6. This puts the ABV at 5.58%. Aiming for around 6. This might have a little more fermenting to go.

In other news, the ESB is mega delish. Totally amazing. Super crazy impressed with it. I'd go as far as to say its better than Redhook. Ya. I said it. What? Come try it!!


note to self: lion king over bock.




brix for new Dunkel: 12.
this puts the original gravity at 1.049. We'll be sure to let you know what happens to this guy :P

KMO brew day

We decided to make a bock for KMO's wedding. Recipe as follows:
1/2 lb crystal 80L
1/2 lb belgian caramunich
6 lbs amber malt
3 lbs amber dry malt
1 oz Hallertau hops (beginning boil)
1 0z Hallertau hops (45 mins into boil)
1 oz Mt Hood hops (finishing, 5 mins before end of boil)
irish moss
Wyeast German Ale #1007

Brix=16.5. Which gives us a SG of 1.068. On target.

We are also bottling KMO's raspberry amber tonight.
Raspberry amber update: brix = 9.0. This puts the ABV at 8.43%!!!! Damn. This is our record for oomph. KMO's wedding is gonna be a blast, fo sho.

Also transferred the KMO dunkel to secondary. Brix = 9.5. Not quite where we want it. We're going to check it again next week and may repitch if it doesn't go down some more. We're thinking this one must be a slow starter.

beer beer beer

Today we are brewing a batch of traditional dunkelweizen for KMO's wedding. We are also transferring the Bloodweizen batches to the secondary. We've decided to mix the Bloodweizens together for the secondary, and we will put it all into a 10 gallon bottling bucket in two weeks. Our goal is uniformity!
Recipe for the dunkel:

6 lbs wheat malt
1/2 lb pale malt (dry)
1 oz Saaz hops (boiling)
1 oz Hallertau hops (finishing)
Wyeast German Wheat #3333

New brix for the Bloodweizen: 5.4% This gives us an ABV of: 4.428% with a final gravity of 1.008.

Brix for the traditional Dunkel:12.4% which gives us an original gravity of 1.051. Totally in line with what we were hoping for. Booyah!!!

thats all for tonight :)

BIZ.IEST.DAY.

holy cow. We're transferring the raspberry to the secondary. We're bottling the ESB. We're brewing TWO BATCHES, thats TEN GALLONS people!!! of the Bloodweizen.

New raspberry brix: 9.5%. This puts the current ABV at 8.03%. This'll get you REAL wasted!! ;)

New ESB brix: 5.6%. This puts the ABV at 4.88%. Right on for an English beer.
We got 25 22's and 2 12's LOL we should've just gone for 26 22's but whatevs.

The brix's for the Bloodweizens: 10.5%. This gives us an specific gravity of 1.043.

There was really no time to blog. Busy night.

thats all for now :)

Brew day!!

Today we are starting the first batch for Monique and Kris's wedding!!!! (heretoblahforeblah referred to as KMO). We are making the raspberry amber, following the same recipe as the one from Monday, June 21 with one slight change. We are pretty sure we used 30L English Crystal that day. The store was out of 30L this afternoon so we got the 10L instead. We made our decision based on color. The original recipe called for more berries, which is what gave the beer its amazing color. We sacrificed color a tad in favor of flavor ( ;) ) when we decided to use 12oz fewer berries. The flavor is exactly what we want, but the color isn't as vibrant. Using the 10L vs. the 30L will make the color slightly lighter and always MORE perfect!! YOWZA!!!

anyways....

Next week will be busy. We are planning on bottling the ESB on monday and starting the 10 gallon batch of Bloodweizen on tuesday. This batch will be for Beer As Art on Sunday, October 24th. Again, if you want to go to this event, make sure one of us has your name on the list. There is NO ENTRY if your name is not on the list. Gotta keep it legal yo!

Our plan is to start the dunkel for KMO the following week, and their pale ale the week after. Whatever beer they decide on for the 4th will be after that. Yadda Yadda. Somewhere in the middle of all this we will be trying a different batch of ESB, with some variations in recipe, until we get it to Patrick's liking. I (erin) would really like to try making an IPA around that time. Sounds delish.

lalala

We are thinking ahead. Planning. Brain storming. Our goal is to start all grain batches January 1, 2011. Switching to all grain will save us money (in the long run) and we need to learn it anyway. The owner of our favorite Brewing supply shop (Cellar Home Brew in Seattle, WA) is going to hook it up :) We are very excited to start buying bags of grain from him. Our ultimate (2 year goal) is to be curled up in the fetal position on a bag of grain and asking ourselves what the fuck have we gotten our selves into??

Till next time, have a hoppy day :)



edit: brix for raspberry - 18.2. This puts our specific gravity at 1.075.

Bottle / Transfer day

Today, we bottled the BloodWeizen. 48 bottles later.... we tasted, and damn, its delicious. This beer has been such a bitch! Aside from the beermergency where it exploded all over because of its hyper-active fermentation.... We decided to bottle this beer with molasses instead of sugar. The molasses overflowed ALL OVER THE STOVE!!!!! In seriously, less than 1.7 seconds. Like, we turned around, and then all of a sudden heard this horrible loud SIZZLE! SO IRRITATING!!! Then, as we're transferring from the carboy into the bottling bucket... the seal on the bottling bucket busted and beer was spilling on the floor!!!! Doh!!! Luckily, we caught it quickly, so very little was lost. But yeah, this beer has been a bitch.
The brix showed as being about 6.9%, but we think thats because of the molasses. We think the last brix we took (6.2%) is more accurate, so that's what we're going with.

The ESB has been transferred to the secondary fermentation. Brix is 5.7%, which gives us an ABV of 4.8%. We'll bottle this in two weeks and we'll let you know how it tastes initially at that time, and of course after its been in the bottles for a couple weeks :)




Just a heads up/reminder, Beer As Art is Sunday October 24th from 5-8pm. If you want to come just give your name to either myself (erin) or patrick and we'll put you on "the list." This is not a free entry list (entry is $5) but you can't get in without your name being on the list. Legality things and all that noise. We will post about this again, here, on facebook, and on twitter, so you will have plenty of opportunities to get on the elusive list :)

till next time, have a hoppy day ;)

Our first tasting party

Was a huge suggess!!!

Everyone loved the raspberry amber, so apparently the changes we made to the recipe were spot on :) I (erin) love it as well. Patrick really wants to try making it a tad hoppier, so we may dry hop it next time, just to see what it does. But we have a for sure winner either way.

The BrEd was received alright as well, although not as strongly as the raspberry (kind of what we expected). The BrEd is for someone with a definite affinity for that style for sure.

In other news..... We are brewing today! It's time for an ESB (Extra Sexy Brew).
The recipe we're using is:
6lbs amber malt
1lb crystal grain 120L
amarillo hops (1.5oz for starting boil, 0.5oz for final boil, these 9.1%AA)
wyeast 1098 british ale
irish moss


We'll let you know how it turns out :)


edit: brix for ESB: 11.2

We've also come to the conclusion that we need to get back to our weekly meetings. This will be much easier now that I've started a new job and finally have set hours. Tuesdays are now firmly set aside for brewing slash business meetings! I'm sure there will also be some beer chat on monday's as well since that is our new jogging day :) We figured that since we're drinking all this beer we should go jogging together once a week. Right? :)

That's all for now, have a hoppy day :)

notes :)

today we are bottling the BrEd (new brix = 7.0%).

We are also transferring the blood weizen to the secondary.

currently listening to: Band of Horses on Pandora.

edit:::: we got 22 regular sized bottles and 14 22's. We should have three more regular bottles but we ran out of bottle caps :(

lesson learned. NEVER AGAIN!!!!

edit::::: brix for bloodweizen = 6.2%. This puts the ABV at 5.108%.

Blood Weizen Brew Day!!!!

brix: 12.0%
this puts specific gravity at 1.049


EDIT LATER EDIT LATER EDIT LATER

Mead update!

We are about to bottle! Just took another pH reading. It's right about 3.2. So it looks like its gone up slightly (was 3.0 last time). Still not quite where we'd like it to be, but hey, its a learning process! It will still taste delicious, we are totally confident in that. Will edit this post with how many bottles we get in just bit!


edit::::::: we got 60 bottles and a grolsch! holy hoppy oly!

BrEd

Transfer in progress. New brix is 6.7%, so that puts the ABV at 5.15%. The previous ABV for this beer was 5.3%. So, not spot on. But not bad for a first try at reproduction!
More later!

Ambitious day!!

We have a crazy ambitious day today! We are bottling both the raspberry amber and the mead! We are also transferring the BrEd to its secondary fermentation.

First off, raspberry brix: 8.7%. Same as before, so the ABV stands at about 6.3%, we are pleased with that.

I'll update later with how much we actually get done.

oh, almost forgot :) We will be doing this years Beer As Art. The theme is "witches brew." We've decided to make a blood orange dark hef, but we need a name for it!! We would certainly appreciate any suggestions :)

Brew night

Tonight we are attempting to reproduce the BrEd. Following the same recipe (and brewing method) as before:

<<6 lbs amber malt extract
1 lb light amber extract (dry)
2 oz Perle hops
16 oz 40L Belgian Caramunich
4 oz chocolate malt
8 oz munich
1332 Northwest Wyeast
1 tsp Irish Moss

Seep all the grains as the water heats up. As boil approaches, remove the grain and add the malt extract. Stir occasionally. Once boil is reached, put in 1 oz of hops. At 40 minutes, add Irish Moss. At 45 minutes of boil, at 1/2 oz of hops. At 55 minutes, add the rest of the hops. Boil is done at 60 minutes.>>

This beer will be at the tasting party, which has been set for Saturday August 14th at 7pm. Cross your fingers for us that it turns out the same as before! Reproduction is the test this week!



Brix: 12.5%, which puts our specific gravity at 1.051. The previous time we brewed this batch the brix was 12.8% and the SG was 1.052. Pretty damn close. We'll see how it tastes!

Some of the reviews we've gotten from friends so far are things like:
-this beer didn't have that "home brew" taste
-great hoppy bite but with a smooth finish
-great aroma
-fantastic head retention
-delicious!

Hopefully, our 2nd shot will come out as good (or better!) than our first.



It's after midnight now and time to post/take pat home/go to bed!

Raspberry transfer day

transferring the raspberry to the secondary fermentation. listening to guns n roses. yesterdays.

Brix: 8.7%.
Since the original Brix was 15.6% our current ABV is 6.3% (using onebeer,net). Pretty right on! We were aiming for a 6.5% and it still may go up a bit before we bottle. We'll definitely let you know how it turns out :)


Till next time,

Eelo&Patr0ck

Raspberry Brew, round 2!

Today, we are re-doing the raspberry. We are following essentially the same recipe as before but with a few changes. Our goal is to increase the ABV and lower the sweetness level a bit.

Recipe:

Volume: 5 gallons
Ingredients:
Malt:
6 lbs bulk malt pale syrup

3 lbs Briess dry malt (brewcraft)

Grains:
3/4 lbs German Wheat
1/2 lbs English Crystal
1/2 lbs Belgian Caramunich
1/4 lbs Dextrin

Boiling Hops:

1 oz Mount Hood hops (5.2% AA)

Finishing Hops:
1 oz Centennial hops (8.5% AA)

Yeast:

Wyeast American #1056

Other:
48 oz Raspberries

Same cooking procedure as before :) We'll let you know how it turns out!

In other news, we've decided that the brown is actually a red. It's delicious. A little on the hoppier side (which both Patrick and I prefer) than we had initially intended for it. We're going to keep the recipe on file as a red, and try another brown in the coming. We will of course post the recipe we use.
We will probably start on the Dunkelweizen before we redo the brown. We want to give ourselves ample time to get that recipe down since it's an important one! (for Monique and Kris's wedding).

Till next time,

Have a HOPPY day!


erin&pat




EDIT: Raspberry brix is 15.6%. This puts our specific gravity at 1.06. Fantastic!

Brown bottling day!

First, a raspberry amber update. The original brix reading was 10.8%. The reading we took today was 4.6%. This gives us a final ABV of 5.3% (using http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml).

Three weeks in the bottle is definitely what was needed to make the raspberry PERFECT! The carbonation is spot on, the head retention is fantastic, the taste and color are both AMAZING!

Now, on to the brown!

The brix is currently 6.9%. We plan on having the brown sit for a couple weeks till we taste, but we are saving the majority of this batch for our first tasting party. We will be starting another raspberry batch next week and once that is ready we will schedule the party. If you would like to come please let us know! We are also still looking for logo designs and name suggestions for our beers. Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments or email us at hazelday81@gmail.com.

Brown transfer day!

Today we are transferring our brown to the secondary fermentation. Our final brix reading is 7.0%, which gives us an ABV of 5.2% (calculated with the help of http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml).

In other news, we are going to try washing our own yeast to use in the future, hopefully to cut down on costs a bit. We're going to try the procedure outlined at http://hbd.org/carboy/yeast_washing.htm.

Additionally, the raspberry amber is officially the most beautiful beer on the planet. We'll try to get some good photos up of it soon. The taste is fantastic as well. I'm just a little blown away by how gorgeous it is. We'll be having a small BBQ for our friends and family very soon to help us with the drinking of this beer. This won't be our official tasting party though. There are a few tweaks we want to make to the amber before we have our fancy pants tasting party.

Mead update: brix is 6.4%, and the pH is 3.0. We are going to add some calcium carbonate to raise the pH, we'd like it to ideally be around 3.8.

Till next time! ~erin and patrick~

Some raspberry amber photos :)

Brown ale!

Recipe:

6 lbs amber malt extract

1 lb light amber extract (dry)

2 oz Perle hops

16 oz 40L Belgian Caramunich

4 oz chocolate malt

8 oz munich

1332 Northwest Wyeast

1 tsp Irish Moss

Brix: 12.8% Specific Gravity: 1.052

This beer smells AMAZING!!! I can't wait until it's ready!

Seep all the grains as the water heats up. As boil approaches, remove the grain and add the malt extract. Stir occasionally. Once boil is reached, put in 1 oz of hops. At 40 minutes, add Irish Moss. At 45 minutes of boil, at 1/2 oz of hops. At 55 minutes, add the rest of the hops. Boil is done at 60 minutes.

In addition, we managed to get 49 bottles out of the raspberry amber batch. The color is beautiful! It is by far one of the prettiest beers I have ever seen, I can't wait to taste it! We're gonna let it sit in the bottles for 7-10 days, then we'll be sure to give you an update :)

That's all for now! Brew day #2 complete! Time for a celebratory beer :)

Bottling Today, as well as brewing a new batch. First, the raspberry beer.

Measured brix now is 5.8%, which is higher than before and means the beer is 4.4% ABV. Who knows why this difference is. The only way to be totally sure will be to measure the beer out of a bottle, and make the beer again and see if it turns out the same.

The new beer is a brown ale. Exciting!

-Patrick

New brix reading!

Brix = 4.1, so, according to www.onebeer.net our current ABV is 5.6% !! :)

It's alive!

This is my first time posting a video so we'll see if it works...

This didn't start fermenting right away. Possibly because it was outside (temp around 45-50')? I moved the beer inside today (temp around 65') and it started bubbling.

Twitter

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https://twitter.com/mtolympusbrew

Day 1, Hooray!

Hello world! We are Erin and Patrick, aka Mt. Olympus Brewing!

We are two friends living in Seattle, WA who have decided to start a brewery! Patrick has been a home brewer since 2003. Erin is a wanna-be entrepreneur. We are both beer lovers and decided this is the perfect way for us to combine our talents and pursue something that we love!

We hope you will follow us on our journey :)

~First Beer~ -- Raspberry Brew--

Recipe:

Volume: 5 gallons
Ingredients:
Malt:
6 lbs bulk malt pale syrup

Grains:
3/4 lbs German Wheat
1/2 lbs English Crystal
1/2 lbs Belgian Caramunich
1/4 lbs Dextrin

Boiling Hops:

1 oz Mount Hood hops (5.2% AA)

Finishing Hops:
1 oz Centennial hops (8.5% AA)

Yeast:

Wyeast American #1056

Other:
60 oz Raspberries

Cooking notes:
Seaping grain until water boils. Add malt and boiling hops.
Boiling for 55 minutes, add finishing hops and go for 5 more minutes. Once boil is done, begin ice bath to cool. Add berries at about 180' F. Wait until wort chills to 75' F and pour wort through strainer into the first fermentor. Add the rest of the water to get up to 5 gallons and pitch yeast.

Brix - 10.8 %

Specific Gravity - 1.044