Beer School

Also, I wanted to mention that I decided to go to a professional beer brewing school. I'll either be there in the fall or spring. Hopefully the fall, but I have to work a few things out as far as getting myself prepared for the course. We'll see how it all goes.

Batch #2 Tasting #3

So I had another bottle of my second batch today, and I am amazed at how much it has improved. I guess I was just a little anxious. It really cleared up a lot too. The head is nice, but not overpowering (I don't think it should be for this beer). The carbonation is really nice too, I think it just took a little longer.

It has a very good taste, nothing too complex, but it really does taste quite nice. It's very smooth.

Fermenter Pic

So I finally got my camera charger in the mail, and wanted to take a pic to post. This is my hefe in the fermenter chugging away (and a few bottles I've been saving up for when I bottle it).

Batch #4 Brewing

The other day I brewed my fourth batch. It was AHS Hefeweizen Mini-Mash kit. It was my first time doing a mini mash.

A few notes:

Towards the end of the steeping, I turned the gas back on to keep the temperature up around 155, but I turned my back and it creeped up to about 168. It was probably there for 3-5 minutes. I took it off heat immediately and let it sit and cool down. It was towards the end of it anyway, so I let it sit for the rest of the time (probably another 5 minutes), and then let the grains drip out and poured some 170 degree water through it.

It was the first time I used a yeast starter. The wort I used to make the starter was probably a lot more concentrated than it should have been (I put too much DME in). I decided to even it out with a little more water. The bottle was too small though, so it ended up over flowing when it fermented. I poured into a larger jar (got my erlenmeyer fask in the mail the next day), and it seemed to go alright, but I lost some yeast. There was still a good amount there.

To cool it down, I used a mixture of an ice water bath, and adding cold water to the wort. I was concerned I wouldn't have enough ice and would take too much time (my sink at school is smaller) which is why I did this. Hopefully it doesn't effect it much.


Target OG was 1.050
My OG ended up being around 1.045