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stoutmakerLeave a comment
After sitting and looking at all this stuff we got , and have had growning, I got a little pissed at my self for not fermenting it. Sheesh when we were kids we made wine outta everything we could find. Apples, pears, rice … Now I'm sitting here looking at rhubarb, red currents, and never thought about using them. Well maybe my currants, but those are going into a wheat beer later on.
 
I think I get asked about 5 times a day this time of year if I want any rhubarb, and always say no. But this year I'm gonna take all I can get. I havent made rhubarb wine in quite a while, but I'm guessing I'm gonna use the same basic procedure, but this time I have better equipment.
 
Here is what I plan on doing. 3 gallon batches. 
-chop and Freeze my rhubarb. thinkin maybe 7-8-9 lbs. (estimating)
-thaw it out and put into bucket dump about 4 lbs sugar on it and let sit in a cool spot for 2 days (maybe brown sugar)
-heat up 3 1/2 water. (Hot, not boiling) again estimating. and dump over the rhubarb and sugar mixture that is prolly looking all soupy by now.
-strain all that out. cool,  and put into fermenter with oh I dunno, a cup of rasins and a cut up lemon and wine yeast.
-secondary
-bottle, Gonna use bombers
 
Ah yea. just like the good old days,, but better. Gotta get home and make some space for this

Ipod app

stoutmakerLeave a comment
I was looking for an app for brewing for my Ipod. Well maybe not for brewing,, more for recipes i guess. One of the first one suggested to me was the Brew Pal app.

Nice little Prog. Does what I wanted to do. Create recipes, calculate mash water temps and volumes. Timers, pitch rates, charts, exporting … even a style guide for when you make a new recipe off the top of your head it will suggest a style that it matches. Lots of neat things in one place. And cheap. $0.99, so it wont break your bank.

I put in a few recipes, an even used its software to brew. Well, started to. Quickly found that the numbers were nowhere near what they should be. I thought I dialed in my equipment into the prog fairly well, but still way off. But the deal breaker was the crashing, crashing, crashing. Could not keep it running no matter what I tried. I’m certain that the next patch will address it, but until then its pretty useless to me. So right in the middle of a batch, I dumped it.
Started looking for another app to fill in, and soon found ibrewmaster Right along the same lines as Brew pal, but it just feels more organized. Everything your looking for is right where you would expect it to be. I like the calanders section where you can keep track of the brews that are in progress. Especially if you have multiple batches fermenting, keeping track of thier progress is easy.
The timers are pretty much straight forward, mash timers, hop schedules. Oh and come loaded with a ton of Northern Brewer recipes.
I have used both Brew Pal and ibrewmaster, and would take the ibrewmaster as they stand right now. But if Brew Pal ever fixes the crash thing I will check them out again.

5-15-11

stoutmakerLeave a comment

Went down stairs to check on the fermenters this morning. Smells pretty good down here. The Stout looks like it is pretty much done. not a lot goin on any more. Just needs to sit another week or two.
The Steam is still just chuggin along. This lager yeast seems to act a bit different. Windsor or 05 would have had a big fast churning stage and then flat line for the rest. This lager yeast just stays on its steady pace.
I can say that i wasnt expecting the yeast to be all floating up on top of the krausen like this though.
The mead seems to be going right along too. Surprised with the 04 yeast on this also. Was worried that it might blow off over the top of the bucket, but so far she looks pretty tame. I dont have the lid on tight so took a little peak last night. I think the last couple times I tried mead it was the same thing. So i guess all is well.