Monday, January 26, 2009

Two Brews in Secondary

Well, I racked my Nightshade Ale to secondary today. Fermented in primary nearly 8 days, and that's the longest fermentation I've had so far. It brewed incredibly vigorously for at least 3 or 4 of those days. It looked a deep reddish-purple in the carboy...yay for purple beer! It smelled a LOT like a tripel, which threw me off a bit. I wasn't really sure what I was expecting it to smell like, but I don't think I was expecting that. However, I love tripel's, so it can really only be a good thing.

My raspberry-chocolate stout has been sitting in secondary for about a week now, and I figure sometime in the next couple of day's I'll bottle it, so it'll have conditioned enough to be ready for Valentine's Day. I just dread the thought of bottling - I really want to start kegging, because it is SO much easier...and it's cool having beer "on tap" at my apartment. Bottling is just a pain, it's messy, and it takes up a whole afternoon.

With those two brews in secondary, the next question is what to brew next. I really want to brew an Imperial Stout, but it just doesn't seem that timely right now. Also, I know it would take a long time in secondary, and I don't think I want to take up one of my carboy's for that long. Maybe over the summer I'll throw a batch together, and let it sit all the way until winter.

A buddy of mine recently brewed the "Innkeeper" beer kit, from Northern Brewer. I guess it would best be classified as an amber, though the biscuit malt gave it a flavor I hadn't really tasted before, and I really liked it. That got me thinking, though, that I kind of just want to brew a good session beer - one that I can just pop open when I'm in the mood for a beer, one that I can have a few of when I have buddies over to hang out. I've been experimenting a lot and trying a bunch of unique things, but I'm thinking about going back to basics.

I like the amber ale I brewed for my first batch, so maybe I'll do something like that again, but switch it up a little bit. Three of my good friends near me all brew, and we kind of try to all brew different things. I really liked the beer my friend just brewed, but want to do something a little bit different. So we'll see. He also brewed a honey ale a couple of months back, and that was really good as well. I do like using honey as an ingredient, and it still makes an easy-drinking beer.

Hopefully I'll have some ideas for my next batch in a few days. Law school and working three jobs has kept me busy, to say the least, but this is one of the few things I do to relax.

Oh - almost forgot. I sampled my Chocolate Thunder porter again the other night, and it has really mellowed a LOT since the last time I tried it. There's still a little too much coffee/roasted bitterness, but it's much smoother overall, and more of the chocolate sweetness is coming through. If I do another chocolate-style beer, I'll probable cut the chocolate malt by quite a bit, since the baker's chocolate itself provides plenty of bitterness.

No comments: