Homebrewing Batch #3

[Mookow]

My attempt at a Weisenbock(-ish) beer. Recipe as follows. All hops are whole leaf, and this is a 5.5 gallon batch

8# Munton's wheat LME
2# Munton's Amber DME
1.25# Crystal
.3# chocolate malt
.3# debittered black patent

3oz Saaz 3.5% @ 60min
1oz Fuggles 5.3% @ 10min

Irish moss at 15 minutes
Pitched onto the yeast cake of my hefe, which was using WYeast #3333 (German wheat).


I brewed this one last night. I broke my hydrometer, so I took a sample, added just a tiny bit of bleach (to stop fermentation), and set it aside. This morning it had a bit (less than a quarter inch) of foam on it, so I guess I should have added a bit more. When I finally got a reading on it, it was 1.091. I'm guessing then that this was about 1.093-095 originally. I would have needed a new hydrometer anyway, as my old one only went up to 1.080

I also had to buy a blowoff at the homebrewing store while I was there, as the combination of pitching my wort onto a good, healthy yeast cake and having a high gravity (ie, lots of sugar) wort to be fermented resulted in my airlock popping out.

Next Sunday I'm going to throw half of this batch into an empty 3 gallon fermenter, and half onto a 3 gallon fermenter with 1.5lbs of rasberries. I'd consider adding more, however that might get the alcohol percentage a little too high.

 

[Howard]

Taste test when?

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: Howard
Taste test when?

I might crack a bottle a month from now, but I anticipate this taking at least two months before it is fully matured. Then again... this is all of my third batch of homebrew, so I dont know for sure.

 

[Eli]

You're really rockin them out, eh?

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: Eli
You're really rockin them out, eh?

Yup, but I have reasons for doing so. I know that a large portion of my first two recipes I will be bringing to my uncle's wedding never to be seen again (hopefully... my uncle has some fairly crazy friends that might end up drunk and urinating in public ). The third batch I made will not be in time for the wedding, and so I get to keep all of it. I pretty much made it because:
-I bought my wheat malt extract in bulk, and want to use it sooner rather than later
-I was about to have a nice yeast cake left over from batch #2, which meant I could save $6 (the cost of a packet of liquid yeast) by making another wheat beer and tossing it onto that yeast cake.
-I wanted another couple cases worth of homebrew.

I dont know when I'm going to make another batch, although it will likely be sooner rather than later. I know I want to do an IPA, and given that I'm a hop-head, it's likely to be closer to an Imperial IPA, and thus it will need a while to mellow out. So even if I got started on that today, it likely wont be ready until Christmas. But I think there is a decent chance I'll be brewing something this weekend when I'm bottling the lemon Hefe. Hopefully the rasberry lemon Hefe will be done by then, too. It's bubbling pretty hard right now.

In any event:
:beer::beer:

 

[BatmanNate]

Brewing seems much quicker than vinting, I think I'm going to have to take it up during the winter.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: BatmanNate
Brewing seems much quicker than vinting, I think I'm going to have to take it up during the winter.

Yeah, though depending on what style of beer you are making, it can take either a very long time, or less than two weeks from brew day till it's ready to drink. I dont know enough about wine making to really comment on it (wine has never really caught my interest), but I imagine it takes a longer conditioning period than brewing.

 

[Mookow]

Racked this to secondary last night. The gravity is down to 1.031. It's got a moderate hint of banana to it with a little bit of chocolate in there, too; all of which is within style guidelines. Right now, it's about 8% ABV, and it should gain another percentage point or so before bottling. Again, I'm splitting this one in two and adding rasberries to one part of the batch. The portion of my second batch with rasberries added has a very nice rasberry aroma, and just enough of a hint of the flavor.

I think I'm going to let this one sit in secondary for at least 3 weeks, and let it settle down some.

 

[Mookow]

I bottled this last night. FG was 1.020 for both beers. I tasted the beer drawn off for testing, and it tasted remarkably close to Aventinus, which is a very good Weizenbock. This attenuated very well, it ended up being about 2% higher than the listed range of AA for this yeast strain. I'm assuming that was due to having pitched this onto a previous yeast cake. The final alcohol content is roughly 9.4% ABV, and it is hidden very well.

 

[waggy]

hmm all the home brewers in the furom should swap beers. You can send some to me too! hmm

I want to start brewing myself. just a expesive hobby to get into. My wife said i can after we get teh house decerated and fixed up =(


comon send me a few bottles !heh

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

:beer::thumbsup:

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: waggy
hmm all the home brewers in the furom should swap beers. You can send some to me too! hmm

I want to start brewing myself. just a expesive hobby to get into. My wife said i can after we get teh house decerated and fixed up =(


comon send me a few bottles !heh

It's cheaper than drinking all but the cheapest beers. But you don't pound back Natty Light or Busch, do you?

I have two batches pretty much done now, one porter and one "light" beer. The Light is reeeeeaaallly good. i'm suprised at how smooth it is. Would have been a great some brew.

I've also got 6 gallons of wine working right now. That fermented for 8 days and when I racked it to secondary the damned thing started up again and has been going stronger than ever.

 

[Coquito]

I need to start saving up all those resealable beer bottles.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: Coquito
I need to start saving up all those resealable beer bottles.

I just collect mine while I'm bartending. Which means I have sort of a mixed bag as far as bottles go, but OTOH they were free.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: waggy
hmm all the home brewers in the furom should swap beers. You can send some to me too! hmm

I want to start brewing myself. just a expesive hobby to get into. My wife said i can after we get teh house decerated and fixed up =(


comon send me a few bottles !heh

For a hobby it isnt all that expensive at all. You can easily get started up for $100, and each batch of beer costs much less than a commercial equivalent. Plus you can make beers that would never be commercially produced.

Of course, you can also sink $1000+ into this hobby just for start-up equpiment if you want to. But you can get by perfectly fine for a lot less.

EDIT: I wouldnt be opposed to having an ATOT homebrew swap, but I think the shipping costs would be prohibitive.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: HomeBrewerDude
:beer::thumbsup:

Have you brewed anything lately?

Oh, one odd thing about this brew is that I used carbonation drops for the first time. I didnt have a spare carboy or bucket to rack my beer into to mix with sugar, but I did have an unopened package of Coopers carbonation sugar drops, so I used those. I'm presuming that they should work just fine.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82

Originally posted by: waggy
hmm all the home brewers in the furom should swap beers. You can send some to me too! hmm

I want to start brewing myself. just a expesive hobby to get into. My wife said i can after we get teh house decerated and fixed up =(


comon send me a few bottles !heh

It's cheaper than drinking all but the cheapest beers. But you don't pound back Natty Light or Busch, do you?

I have two batches pretty much done now, one porter and one "light" beer. The Light is reeeeeaaallly good. i'm suprised at how smooth it is. Would have been a great some brew.

I've also got 6 gallons of wine working right now. That fermented for 8 days and when I racked it to secondary the damned thing started up again and has been going stronger than ever.

What recipes did you use for the porter and the light beer?

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: Mookow

Originally posted by: HomeBrewerDude
:beer::thumbsup:

Have you brewed anything lately?

Oh, one odd thing about this brew is that I used carbonation drops for the first time. I didnt have a spare carboy or bucket to rack my beer into to mix with sugar, but I did have an unopened package of Coopers carbonation sugar drops, so I used those. I'm presuming that they should work just fine.

not lately... that christmas ale was the last thing. I need to keg it up and taste it.

cheers!
jeff

 

[iamwiz82]

Porter

6.6lbs amber malt extract
8oz Crystal Malt 60L
4oz Chocolate Malt
4oz Black Patent Malt
1oz cluster hops @ 60min
.5oz willamette hops @ 5 min

Can't find my light, but IIRC, it was:

3.3lbs light malt extract
3lbs rice syrup solid
1oz saaz bittering
1oz saaz finishing

There was more, but I cannot remember, for the life of me.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: Mookow

Originally posted by: waggy
hmm all the home brewers in the furom should swap beers. You can send some to me too! hmm

I want to start brewing myself. just a expesive hobby to get into. My wife said i can after we get teh house decerated and fixed up =(


comon send me a few bottles !heh

For a hobby it isnt all that expensive at all. You can easily get started up for $100, and each batch of beer costs much less than a commercial equivalent. Plus you can make beers that would never be commercially produced.

Of course, you can also sink $1000+ into this hobby just for start-up equpiment if you want to. But you can get by perfectly fine for a lot less.

EDIT: I wouldnt be opposed to having an ATOT homebrew swap, but I think the shipping costs would be prohibitive.

I seen a kit that had everything i would need (talked to a few others that pointed me to it) for $300. I keep telling my wife thats what i want but she never gets it heh.

I wonder what the cost would be to say ship a 6 pack? have to get shpping material etc but that can be re-used to send back bottles etc.

I think it would be a lot of fun to do.