Just Getting Started

Bock beer fermenting vigorously in foreground, stout quietly bubbling in back.

Brewed a bock beer yesterday from a kit my mom gave me for Christmas.  What's interesting is that I didn't ask for the kit or suggest the style, but it's exactly the kind of beer I was thinking of doing next.  

The kit came from Homebrew Heaven out of Washington state.  It came with about 7.5 lbs of dark malt extract (although I think it was "cut" a bit with corn sugar), 1.5 lbs of various malts (including Victory, Crystal, and Chocolate), and both boiling and finishing hops of Hallertauer and Saaz.  The yeast is the dry Saflager S-23 lager yeast, which I had success with before. 

My basement is about 65-67 degrees right now, which is okay for this kind of yeast, although 45-55 degrees would be better.  I expect the beer to ferment for a week, then sit in a secondary for 2-3 weeks, then age in the bottle.

The OG was about 1.068, which points to a final ABV of over 6%.  Good for a bock style beer.

I'm brewing it now so it will be aged nicely for Maifest.

Which is why the next big step is buying a mini-fridge with temp control.   A lager like this wants to sit in a cool place for a few months.

So in the past four weeks I brewed and bottled my two-berry wheat; I brewed an all-grain stout, which is still in a primary; and I brewed an extract bock beer.  Do I have a homebrew problem, or am I just getting started?

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Two-Berry American Wheat BOTTLED

Bottled the Two Berry American Wheat tonight.  We lost power for a few minutes during bottling and I "lost" about two bottles into my overflow container, so I'm drinking it while I write this post.  Cheers!

The beer sat on the fruit for one week.  Activity in the overflow tube stopped after three days, and going on gut instinct I think it was time to bottle it.

(The final gravity was 1.012 at 67 degrees, down from the 1.014 a week ago, and 1.05 at start.  So the abv should be about 5.1%.  Pretty good!)

Thee beer is VERY dark - a good sign.  It smells like berries, tastes a little bit like a fruit beer, and has a good fruit aftertaste.  I can't wait for it to carbonate and chill.  I expect a good beer.

Brewing this beer is making me very nostalgic.  My grandparents had a mulberry tree in front of their house in Valley Stream, NY, and we kids used to play under the tree, and even eat the berries, in the summer.  My grandmother also kept a grape vine which she used for jelly, and my father made wine from the grapes a few times.

I guess I'm carrying on the tradition, as I used mulberries (2 lbs, collected over a few weeks) from a tree in my own front yard in Chicago.

Now to wait patiently while it bottle conditions.  Tomorrow I brew my all grain dry stout I'm planning for St. Patrick's Day, and next week I'll do an extract Bock I can lager a few months for, in time for Maifest!

Two-Berry American Wheat Beer

I'm making an American wheat beer, using 2 lbs of mulberries picked from the tree in front of our house, and two pounds of frozen blackberries.

It's a simple recipe based off Dan Palmer's description, using wheat liquid malt extract, northern brewer and hallertauer hops, and an American wheat beer yeast.

For some reason the beer was slow to ferment.  I think my basement temp of 67 degrees contributed to that.

After 14 days, even though the gravity dropped from an OG of 1.05 to 1.015, there was still activity in the airlock.

Anxious to get the beer onto fruit, I racked the five gallons of beer onto the four pounds of fruit.  Or at least I tried to.

I primary brewed in my 6.5 gallon carboy, so I had to use a 5 gallon carboy for secondary fermentation.  Big mistake.  I left about 2 quarts of beer in the old carboy.  (As it was all the muddy stuff in the bottom with the yeast, and the beer was still a little active, I decided not to try and bottle it.)

I had broken up the frozen fruit into pieces and got it into the carboy using a big funnel and skewer.  I didn't sterilize the fruit.  I guess I'm experimenting to see if the alcohol in the beer (4.7% so far) and freezing the fruit is enough to kill most of the bad guys.
We'll see.

The 5 gallon carboy was filled to the brim with beer and fruit.  I was stupid and put a regular airlock on it - which overflowed in about 4 hours.  I switched to an overflow tube and so far it's bubbling nicely and the beer seems to be fermenting again.
I have no idea how long this will take. 

I'll do a hydrometer reading in a week, then every few days, and wait to see when it stops.  I'm guessing the alcohol content will rise a bit more.
Next on the horizon - an all grain, dry stout.

High-Point Two Step

Betkefest 2010