Thursday, January 24, 2013

Grandpa's Batch

Bottled Grandpa's Batch last night and managed to break another hydrometer! So this is a quick batch we decided to do with my father-in-law earlier in December. Couple of notes - see the green bottles above? Stella Artois and Pilsner Urquell do not work for bottling homebrew beer! Found that out the hard way! Only difference in this batch from the last batch is we used Nottingham yeast instead of Cooper's. I was really hoping using Nottingham's ale yeast would make a better beer, but tasting it out of the fermenter, it tasted very cidery, which evidently is caused by using the sugar the kit calls for. The pro tip for making kits from a Cooper's can is to use DME (Dry Malt Extract) instead of sugar for a better beer. There are a few things I would like to try, such as using DME in addition to the Cooper's can and throwing some specialty grains like Crystal 60 in the batch. I guess I just need to keep brewing, but I can't decide what I want to do next. In typical homebrew fashion, I tried a bottle of the All Grain while bottling and it tasted fantastic but is still flat. I really need to leave it alone for at least another week.

 So I really think All Grain so far seems to very superior, it is purely anecdotal as I haven't tried to make an extract American Pale Ale. I will be brewing this weekend, either another All Grain or a True Brew Nut Brown Ale. I really want to try Marris Otter as the base malt in a Pale Ale/IPA, I guess I just need to brew more so I have beer around for me to drink. So many things I want to try, so little time to actually brew, I'm not sure if I want to do more of the All Grain or do some quick down and dirty kits and throw some stuff together to see what I like best. The only limiting factors for me are really cost, the Cooper's can costs $20, throw in some extra hops, specialty grains and DME and I'll be pushing $40, whereas the All Grain cost me $19 total and I believe so far has produced far superior beer. I guess in the end its all about how much is your time worth.

You'll notice the beer tree in back that I just recently got from my mother-in-law for my birthday. She also got me a wort chiller, temperature gauge for the fermenter, bottle cleanser and bottle washer. I have an awesome setup now and I think it is complete. I really can't wait to brew this weekend, I might even brew twice since I have to empty fermenter buckets!

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