"Hey, I haven't posted in awhile, sorry about that! Here's some of the same claptrap that's been going on in my life that nobody is going to read, be back in a year to do the same thing again!"
That's sort of boring. So why not start posting about something that's meaningful to me? Like brewing! Keeping a brewjournal both in my personal stash and online is probably a way for me to post more. And have meaningful posts. Also, I tend to think of great ideas mid thought-stream, and most to all of everything I've written since high school has been entirely voice. It works for me, though I could never be an English major.
So where do I sit with brewing? I have two fermenters currently active, and a box of ingredients that should arrive tomorrow.
In primary (with a sweet cheap once-used bucket from How Do You Brew) right now are two gallons of cider from Millburn Orchards. It's more of an experiment, really. I've only brewed beer and have wanted to get into wine - but I've been worried that it's somehow more complicated than just warming the juice up and adding yeast. Turns out it IS more complicated than that, but if you just want to make wine (and I do love to hit the ground running) that's all you need to do. So I bought a packet of Nottingham, and promptly burnt the fuck out of it with 140F tap water. Oops. I pitched it anyway and the next morning I saw no airlock activity. So I went to buy another packet - got two this time. Pitched the yeast directly in, gave it a swirl, and from that Saturday until this past Wednesday or so it's been farting out nasty-smelling deliciousness more vigorously than I've ever seen. I hope that I can bottle it next weekend, but that may not happen. I am, though, going to taste it. Also got a pound of lactose for back-sweetening, because I'm pretty sure I won't like dry cider. I don't like dry wine (though chianti and merlot are good), so that makes sense.
In secondary is a Christmas beer I'm making partially for winter, partially for experimentation, and partially for Sarah for her birthday. It's an interesting beer, unlike anything I've done before. I used honey in the boil, and I'm using a secondary. It's 3-4 gallons and I used an ounce and a half of fresh ginger in the boil, and in secondary I've got whiskey-soaked oak and three pounds of frozen cherries. I tasted it while racking and it's definitely beer, but it's got quite a distance to go before it's done. Two weeks on the oak and cherries, then three weeks in the bottle. The recipe said it tasted like a gingerbread cookie, and given the ingredients I'm expecting it to be gingery, slightly aromatic (from the cinnamon), and with an earthy sweetness. I already have a name for the recipe, though in keeping with my recipe-stealing morals I do not name my beers until I modify the recipe. So I'll find some way of modifying the recipe to make it my own, then I'll name it.
The box of ingredients I'm (or should be) receiving tomorrow contains yeast nutrient, yeast, and 12 pounds of honey. I'm making mead! ... for next year. I don't have another airlock (stupid me should have bought a third) so I may have to wait until I bottle the cider or the christmas beer, but given that I'm using a 6 gallon carboy and making 5 gallons of mead, I may also just employ a blowoff. It might end up being a good idea, actually, as there's a lot of sugar in honey and I expect the fermentation to be extremely vigorous and take a week. Unfortunately the mead is going to take no less than 6 months to become drinkable. One month primary, two months secondary, and two months in the bottle. At least 2 months, anyway. This is another experiment, so I'll be using my brewday as a starting point and save at least one of the bottles for the next year's mead brewday to see how the aging process works.
Speaking of aging, I've a few bottles left of a porter I made, and bottled on September 3rd. If kept at proper beer serving temperature, the chocolate taste is slightly more pronounced. I'm remaking it with modifications for St. Paddy's day, and I'm very interested to find it's optimal aging time. I've six 12-oz bottles and two bombers left, though two 12-oz and one bomber are already accounted for, hopefully I'll be able to hold off drinking them all until I reach at least 6 months. Interestingly enough, 6 months (and a week or two) past the bottling say for this beer is st. patrick's day. So St. Patrick's day 2013 may end up getting it's porter made in August of 2012.
Beer is fun.
