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~