Homebrewing Thread for KCW

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Wow!

MacMullen, I must have logged off last night just before you posted this or I would have responded! And been in class all day today.

Anyway, I am currently on a wine kick (OK, I prefer wine most of the time!), but when I do brew beer, I am very partial to heartier, heavier brews, like stouts. My favorite beer is from Germany and is a doppelbock from Kloster Ettal (a monastery) in the south of Germany near Garmisch. It is truly heavenly!

Some of your favorites sound good as well, but I have to say that Adrew's oatmeal raisin cookie stout sounds fantastic. Thanks for the recipe Andrew! The coffee stout sounds great too.

I usually make grape wines, but I have done some fruit wines, and there is actually a fruit winery just over the border in WI (Appltreow), that makes a black cherry port that I would really like to try and duplicate. An explosion of flavor from the first sip that has the taste buds dancing!

Anyway, when I brew a beer, I usually bottle in a combination of normal and large size bottles. Always was interested in doing some kegging, but never got around to buying the equipment. Haven't actually made anything since we moved to Chicago in May, but I actually have a white wine kit waiting in the basement to start. Hopefully over the holidays.

Sherry, I actually did a mead about 3 years ago. Takes a little work as the yeast really does not want to keep going when the alcohol percentage gets too high, but a mead usually has a high proof. So you have to "baby" the yeast to complete fermentation. Not a huge deal, but more work than a standard beer or wine. Then when it was finished, I decided that mead was really not to my taste. Thought it was just my batch, but I have a friend that really likes mead and he gave it a thumbs up when I gave him a bottle, so apparently it tasted as it should.

Great thread!

[MacMullen]

I've never made mead, but I know people who have. They made a honey mead, and from what I remember it took a lot of honey. That guy also made a jalapena pepper beer. Burned all the way down and all the way through your guts until it found its own way out.

I'm telling you guys, brown PETN plastic bottles with screw on lids are the way to go, if you bottle. You'll wonder why you ever messed with glass bottles in the first place.

After all of my big talk this morning about how much money I save brewing beer myself, I thought you'd appreciate the irony of my brewing session this evening. It was a Stout using a partial mash, i.e., steeping the specialty grains at 160F for 20 minutes.

Here's how it went:

1) Sterilize the Brew Bucket
2) Steep speciality grains for twenty minutes.
3) Put water on to boil in Brew Kettle
4) Take temperature of mash.
5) After finishing 20 minutes of monitoring the temperature, BREAK GLASS THERMOMETER in such a way that glass and lead shot fall into both steeping pots, ruining a $6.00 thermometer and about $6.00 worth of grains.
6) Throw remains of thermometer and both steeping bags filled with grain in the garbage.
7) Dump out almost two gallons of good wort - good except for the glass and lead shot rolling around in the bottom of the pots.
8 ) Drive to Brew Store in freezing temps to spend $6.00 on a new thermometer and another $6.00 on specialty grains.
9) Continue to brew without incident.

Happy to report that 5 gallons of Stout are in the Brew Bucket and the yeast has been pitched.

Oh well, I still saved money over Guinness (unless I start charging myself for labor, plus pain and suffering).

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

...After all of my big talk this morning about how much money I save brewing beer myself,...

And after all of the talk about good beers, when we went grocery shopping yesterday, there was a 12 pack minicase of Samuel Adams specialty brews for the holidays, one of those give a friend a "Brew from around the world" promotions. Anyway, all this talk had me hankering for a good beer, so I threw (ok, placed) it in the cart, and at $9.99, not a bad purchase. Brought it home and threw it in the fridge. There was a Black Lager, Cranberry Lambic, Holiday Porter, Old Fezziwig Ale, Sam Adams original, and a holiday brew.

Anyway, today was Xmas light and decorating day, so after getting most of the outside lights and decorations up, I decided to celebrate and try the Black Lager and it was outstanding! Great taste, full body, I just loved it. There is nothing better than a good, full bodied beer!

[MacMullen]

There is nothing better than a good, full bodied beer!

Unless it's a good, full bodied homebrewed beer. :mrgreen:

5 gallons = 2.2 cases of beer (640 oz of beer).


I'll have to check out the grocery store for the Sam Adams 12 pack. I almost picked up a sampler 12 of Point beer, from Steven's Point, WI, also for $9.99, but I saw the Leinie's Apple Spice and had to give that a try. Not bad beer, but definitely out of the ordinary.

We just put our tree up and now I'm going to celebrate with a homebrewed Hefeweizen.

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Unless it's a good, full bodied homebrewed beer.

Mac, that was implied, given the thread!

Congrats on getting the tree up, and enjoy the hefeweizen! Enjoying a glass of black raspberry Merlot right now and it is the perfect cap to dinner.

BTW, enjoy the new SWK! Although I am extremely jealous that you can be that tall and have the waist of a teenage boy! 34, I should live to see 38 again, even with kilt sizes!

Anyway, enjoy the SWK nightstalker, it is a great tartan, and a decent kilt. Get your wife to sew down the fell, and you will have a "great" kilt!

RJI

[cormacmacguardhe]

has anyone ever tried "Traquair Jacobite Ale" I just bought some flavored with coriander. Pretty good tasting ale, and I am not really an ale fan. Comes from a brewery in Innerleithen, Peeblesshire.

[Nick]

You guys are making me thirsty!!

I've thought about trying my hand at brewing, but I have not the time or money at the moment. The only thing I've done so far is mulling wine, and I think I mull a pretty good bottle of wine

[Verlyn]

Oh man, I knew when I found kilts I found my niche of friends and this just rounds it out. I do a lot of brewing my self and have gotten heavily into meads lately. I have a Chocolate mead thats been aging since March and will be ready to bottle this March. Sherry, the key to mead is patience. You do about 2 hours of work and then WAIT. As said above, if you can boil water, you can brew and for about $100 you are well on your way. My mead is to the point that a Ren Faire vendor (potter) friend of mine has dubbed me the mead master. He makes dragon themed mugs and made one this year named MeadMaster. Its a 24oz mug with an orange/red dragon (the exact main color of my Hay tartan kilt) holding four mugs and has a plaque on it that says, "Will Work for Mead". I wanted it so bad this year at the faire, but since at that time I was still unemployed, I couldn't get it. He put it aside for me and my daughter couldn't stand it anymore and bought him for me since she said, "MeadMaster is you and you have to have him". Don't even think of going anywhere after drinking that much mead. Give it a shot, you'll love it. My brew club went on a field trip to a local micro-brewery and my soon to be son-in-law and I went kilted and the folks there loved it. Andrew, I have to try that Oatmeal Raisin stout recipe you listed. It sounds wonderful.