Tag: homebrewing

Time to get back in

stoutmakerLeave a comment

I really can’t remember a time when there has been such a long span between my brew days. I’m not exactly sure how long I have been brewing, But its over the 30 year mark. And in those 30 years I think the longest I have gone without brewing something was probably 2 months.

It’s been 8 months since I have brewed. 8 months. I did stir a wine together in March tho,, if that counts. 

But I have no beer kegged at all. Could be a few bottles lurking around the basement. Barleywines and Imperial stouts, but that’s it for beer.

I need to brew. Simple as that. I have this Brewers Best kit that I bought last November that I really need to use. So I think I’ll do this kit first so I can make sure that I have all of my equipment collected back up. In 8 months I probably have things scattered all over the place.Then get back to some “real” brewing. 

Besides the 2 wine and cider kegs, I have 5 more cornies and enough 22oz bomber and 16oz swing tops for probably 4 more batches! So I have options. More than enough fermenters and space for them, so spontaneous brewing is just fine.

However,, since the club does not really do anything contest or education related any more, I am not feeling the bug to brew a wide swath of styles. I used to brew anything and everything,, but thats when I gave 75% of my beers away to the club functions and meets and such.

This means I can brew what I want, just for me. But I keep wondering, what style.. or lets make it 2 possibly 3 styles do I want as my home beer stockpile?

Well one is perfectly obvious. Stout. The Jagged Stout in particular. I cant believe I actually let myself run out of this beer. 

2nd would have to be Brit beer. Brit Bitter or Golden. Ya.. I probably have 50 good recipes. 

I could definitely be just fine with kegs full of those. But a third for bottling might be the way to go.. and a good bottling beer is… strong ale.

American or British Strong ale. Yea.. this sound like the plan.

The Philly sour wine initial numbers

stoutmakerLeave a comment

I finally got around to kegging the Philly sour wine. I was going to bottle and cork it as usual.. but after having a quick taste on rack day, I decided this would be great carbonated.

I’d say moderately sour with good body. The Concord really played with the Blackberry nicely. 1.096 OG to 0.996 FG is what.. 13%?

Gonna give it a week or so of the gas and see how it feels. But right now is friggin great. Better tasting notes coming up soon.

Philly Sour Wine

stoutmakerLeave a comment

I won a bottle of wine base at one of our meetings a ways back. And I’m looking to do more “experiments” so I grabbed a packet of Philly Sour yeast to use with it.

I guess my plan is to let the Philly yeast do it’s souring, then pitch the 1118 to chew it down.

Doing the full 5 gallons. So thats the gallon of base plus 4 gallons of water. But I subbed out 3/4 gallons of the water for 3/4 gallons of grape juice. Just for another layer of flavor..plus it might help the souring part of the Philly.

I did do some nutrient at pitch. But there is usually some decent lag time with the Philly because it does two phases. Phase one is the souring, then after that the yeast part takes over and starts the fermenting. And that might take a day…. Or two. So I won’t start the rest of the nutrient program until the ferment actually starts.

My water out of the tap is 50F right now, so I warmed it up to 75F where I will be fermenting at. After getting everything mixed I had an OG of 23 Brix or 1.096. So if everything goes as planned we should be looking at a 12%ish wine.