Whoops, wrote this yesterday but got busy, so I’m posting it now. The present tense… that’s yesterday afternoon’s present tense. The souring didn’t happen, and the thermos didn’t seem to hold in the heat enough, so I’m going to try warm up the mash again to 50, and then sit it on a hot pad. That means today I’ll brew the Abbey Dubbel, and tomorrow the all-Brett. UPDATE: Uh, what? I assumed it hadn’t soured, because it didn’t smell sour, but in fact, it was very nicely tart when I just tasted it. So, all-Brett is on for today, while …
Category: BEER & HOMEBREWING
More Books on Belgian Beer (and More)
I mentioned reading Jeff Sparrow’s Wild Brews a while back, and noted that I wanted to read about the other Belgian styles of beer, covered in other books in the same series. Well, I wish I’d gotten to them sooner, but I have finally gotten to Stan Hieronymous’ famous Brew Like a Monk: Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian Ales and How to Brew Them, and Phil Markowski’s Farmhouse Ales: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition. Both books are really good, though the latter is slimmer than the former. I don’t have a great deal to say about them, in part …
Homebrew Beer Bottle Labels
I’ve done up some labels for a few of the beers I have fermenting/conditioning now. I was lazy for the first few batches I brewed, but I want to make ’em pretty, especially the ones I’m bringing to the Brew-Off Festival in November, or giving away to friends. Writing a letter in marker on the swing-top-lid just isn’t cutting it anymore for me. They’re test trials, really, the labels I’ve done up thus far: I haven’t printed them up and have no idea how they will actually look on the bottles. But it’s a start. I figure once I find …
Brewday: Abbey Wheat
Today is another brewday. I don’t tend to brew during the week, but I wanted to get this going before leaving on a short trip this weekend. I am basing my recipe on the Abbey Weiss by Jon Sharp, posted here (and it really does look delicious there, and beautiful… I can only aspire to something as gorgeous as the beer in his picture). The two changes I went with were to include about 250 grams of Quaker Instant Oats, and first wort hopping. (I also considered using a Chrysanthemum tea instead of Chamomile, since I’d like to see how …
Biere D’Enfer
A long time ago, I was in a hurry to use up one of my beer kits, eager to go to all-grain. So I made a pilsner, pitched the yeast, and nothing happened. The record of my panic is here, but I’ll save this post for talking about what happened next. Which was, I was kind of disappointed by the beer when I tasted it a few times–it felt more than creamy, and I wondered if there was something diacetylic about the odd mouthfeel–so I left it over the summer. Didn’t think about it, didn’t look at it. I had …