Winter Warmer in Secondary

Yesterday, we racked and spiced the Winter Strong Ale. We made a concentrated spice tea to add to the beer to give it a hint of spice flavor in the background. The spice tea contained traditional winter spices: cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger. We added ~3/4 cup of the spice tea to the 5 gallon batch, which should give it a very subtle spice flavor without over powering the beer.

The Winter Warmer will sit in secondary for about 2 months now before bottling it towards the end of October. The beer will be ready to drink following the Thanksgiving holiday, so we have quite some time before we find out whether our first winter ale was a success!


Love and Hoppyness

We Have Head.........

The waiting is finally over, we cracked open an IPA today and it was nicely carbonated. We are both really excited and relieved that the beer is carbonated and not infected. Some of the hoppyness has gone down a little bit, but that is to be expected because the beer has been sitting for a while. IPAs and other highly hopped beers need to be drank in about 2 months before the hop flavor/aroma starts to decline. All in all, we are very impressed with our first homebrew and are looking forward to trying the oatmeal stout soon.

love and hoppyness

Oatmeal Stout

Well, the Oatmeal Stout has finally been bottled. It could have been bottled a while ago, but we didn't have enough bottles for all 5 gallons. We yielded 47 bottles, just like the IPA, and it should be ready in 2-3 weeks. It tasted really good though; nice and roasty, dark, but not too heavy. It should be better than the IPA.

love and hoppyness

Winter Warmer

Over the weekend our Winter Warmer was finally brewed. It is a strong ale that should have an alcohol content of around 8.5%. The addition of 1 pound each of dark brown sugar and clover honey will impart a sweet flavor to the beer and keep the alcohol content up. Dried sweet orange peel was added during the boil as our first spice addition for this beer. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove will be added once the beer is racked to secondary. Becuase of the high gravity of this beer, it will take much longer to finish. It will sit in primary for the normal 1-2 weeks, but will then settle in secondary for 2-3 months. Because of the high alcohol content, it takes much longer for the beer to mellow out and lose some of those harsh "hot" alcohol flavors. We did sneak a taste of the beer before it went into primary and it was very sweet. The brown sugar flavor was very noticeable, but should mellow in the finished beer. As of now, we are very hopefull that this will be a great beer to have during those cold winter nights.

love and hoppyness

Busy Day

Today we have bottled our IPA, and it was a lot less painful than I expected. We had to siphon the beer from the carboy into a bottling bucket, and then mix in 2/3 cup of corn sugar. Bottling buckets have a spigot on the bottom so we can hook up a bottling wand in order to actually fill each individual bottle. I took the job of filling and Elise took the job of capping the bottles. In all, it probably took about 20 minutes to fill, cap, and store the beer. Out of the original 5 gallons, we got a total of 47 beers. We did get to taste the IPA, and it was better than last time. Some of the hop flavor has decreased a bit, but the sweetness and overall taste of the beer has improved. In about 2-3 weeks, we will be having our first homebrewed beer.

With the secondary carboy available, we also transfered the oatmeal stout from the primary bucket into the secondary. We could have bottled the oatmeal stout today, but didnt have enough empty bottles; we are still about 35 bottles short. But, the oatmeal stout can sit in secondary until we get enough bottles without any ill effects.


love and hoppyness

Racking

Today we racked the IPA into its new home: secondary fermentation. With fermentation being complete the beer is siphoned into a second carboy for another week in order to further condition and clear the beer. It is moved from the primary becuase if the beer sits on the yeast for too long the yeast can impart off flavors to the beer. The IPA will be in secondary for another week before it is bottled. We also siphoned off a taste for ourselves, and as you can see the beer looks much lighter in the glass than it does in the carboy. It has a very hoppy aroma and as of right now, it tastes decent. Once it is carbonated and chilled down it is going to be a pretty good IPA.