Author: stoutmaker

March 7 2011 Gearing up

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so its getting to that time of the year where my brewing gets ramped up. Winter is almost over, its not 2 degrees out and I am almost out of beer.

I’m not so worried about the cold,, but the water thing sucks. I brew in my garage and the water is 40 feet away over the snow bank. I got a RV hose to run, but its really a pain trying to run a frozen hose 40 feet. But now that its warmer its not so bad. Do have to allow for longer time though as it really does take longer to get thing heated and boiling.

so anyway, the production is gonna go up. I started this past weeked with my Duck Creek pale, and will continue for the next couple weekends, most likely 1 a weekend. I plan on kegging a brown and a couple of light brews for the summer, and bottle a stout and the Pale ale. My buddies are starting to drink more and more of my stuff so i gotta keep more of the lighter stuff around.

This should keep me in stock till summer when i can then start crankin the wheats. Wheats are great because in the summer there is always some kind of fruit on sale, and you can just dump a wert on them and be good to go.

In between these is when I can work on the heavy stuff that needs to condition for months. The barleywines, the high gravity christmas beers.

There I pretty much just mapped out my brew schedule till late summer. Then we start the winter beers. My stouts, and porters.

Feb 2011 joam mead

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2-12-11 getting ready to “brew” for the first time this year. Gonna be a mead. A small batch. I guess its called Joes ancient orange mead. It was made at the club sometime last year and I just loved it. Mike made a mead, and it just pushed me over the edge. I need to be a mead maker

2-11-11
Went to HoH to get some supplies. Picked up a pArty pig vessel to use a primary for the 1 gallon mead batches. And also got the smaller gallon sized siphon tube.

2-12-11
just getting ready to start the mead. Using the “Joes ancient orange mead” recipe.

3 lbs honey
2 cloves
25 raisins (yep I counted)
Some nutmeg not very much
1 cinnamon stick
1 orange cut up and jammed in there
And a tsp and 1/2 bread yeast

I’m gonna probably rack it even though it says not to, so gonna make just a tad bigger than a gallon.
Just added everything to the Party Pig and shook the crap out of it.
Then added the yeast.
Just a note: I used spring water from wal mart. Wouldn’t normally, but it’s a small batch
I put the pig and a jug of hot water in my chamber. It raised the fermentation temp to 70.

2-13-11
Checked on the mead. Fermentation is on!
The hot water has now cooled and the chamber is holding steady at 62.
There is alot less mass fermenting and creating heat so it’s gonna stay a bit low in there. I will keep an eye on, but the basement is warming up now. It’s 58 down here.
Can’t smell anything like you can with beer. I’m guessing I don’t want to.

Then end of 10

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Made to the end of the year. And had a pretty good year brewing in a lot of ways.
First i guess, is the fact that i made quite a few batches done. That I guess is what we are shooting for. Another good thing this year is that I finally got around to joining the Green Bay Rackers. This was something I should have done long ago, but never did. Really learned more and met more people than I would have on my own. And last, I entered my first competition. Learned quite a bit here. But different ways. Less about making beer, but more about guidelines and what judges really look for.
I have kept a journal of my brews I made this year, and should have it ready to post pretty soon.