Got a bee in my bonnet late Saturday. Decided to brew a new batch now that the first one is bottled. Started at 7 PM Saturday night and finished around 2 AM. Perfect evening for a night brew - cool, calm, clear. Held a much tighter temperature range on this batch.
BTW: Jake is an excellent brewer's apprentice. He stayed up 'til it was all done: opening doors, fetching water, prepping the hops, manning the hose, and holding the lid, funnel & various accoutrements. Good worker that one. He'll be the most popular 19-year old in his dorm if he keeps this up.
This is an Imperial Pale Ale, reputedly a clone of Stone's Ruination. It is BIG (15.5 lbs of grain) and HOPPY (5 hop additions). It should be pretty ruinous as well since the OG is supposed to be 1.084 (which means alcohol content could be as high as 8%).
I say "supposed OG" because once again I screwed up the gravity measurement. During the first batch I dropped the hydrometer and it shattered on the hardwood floor. This time, after buying a new hydrometer, I forgot to get a sample until the boil kettle was near empty. By that point there was more trub (sediment) than beer.
Anyway, I got five full gallons in the primary. And it is absolutely teeming with life! The airlock is bubbling every second. There's a thickening kraeusen (foam) on top. The beer is full of eddies and currents; muddy like the Nile during rainy season. Except I cleaned and sanitized like a fiend.
A new video below, hopefully giving additional insight and stoking the taste buds:
6 comments:
Outstanding work by Phil & Jake.
I suspect, though, that you may be doing something other than brewing beer here...your mention of "gravity measurement" makes me think that you are engaging in some sort of quantum physics experiment, perhaps trying to create a black hole in your back yard. If this is the case, then sign me up, as I would love to explore whatever singularity you produce.
Or, if you are really just brewing beer, that's cool too, and I can't wait to taste it. Either way, we should all get close to developing our own Theory of Everything when we convene on 4 July.
Also, I don't see the video.
a) Thank you, Doctor. We are in fact working on Life, the Universe, and Everything. So far we're pretty convinced the answer is 42.
b) This beer, if properly done, will produce its own singularity. It's not the gravity itself, but the "gravity drop" that determines alcohol content. It's all differential equations and particle physics, man.
c) I have tried 3 times to load the video without success. It is either too big a file or my internet connection is dropping out or Blogger.com sucks.
d) The geysers are starting to erupt today...
regarding the gysers, Im assuming your talking about your beer and not some other thing that you shouldnt be doing, at least while making beer or typing on the computer in your blog. But if that's all you got these days then I understand.
I'd have to agree with Chopes - keep your erupting gyser away from the beer. You may be taking your new passion a bit too seriously...
You two are like perverts at a little league game. Especially the guy named after a bodily fluid.
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