May 1st, 2016 Brew Day;

Today I took a Padiwan Brewing learner under my wing. To teach him the art of brewing fine beer. It has been a while since my last post, and hope it wont be too long before the next one.

We brewed up 2 batches today. Jeff, my learner, wanted to do a German Blonde Ale, and I was looking for a Grolsch clone. We got the recipe and ingredients from the Southern Brewing and Wine-making store in Tampa.

Sunday, bright and early at 7:30 am, we started his brew in my converted keg/boil kettle. We were going to use the Ice method to chill the wort, so we filled the kettle with 5 gallons of water, and heated to 165 to begin steeping the grains for the partial extract. After an hour of steeping the grains, we removed the grain bag, and brought the wort temperature up to boiling. Once the wort was boiling we added 2lbs of extra light dried malt extract, and 1oz of Pearle hops, and set the timer for 60 min.
After 60 minutes we added the last 3lbs of extra light DME, and 1oz of Saaz hops, and set the timer for 15 minutes. At the end of the 15 minutes we turned off the burner and poured the hot wort into an 8 gallon food grade plastic bucket, which will serve as our primary fermenter, along with one 10lb bag of ice. This dropped the temperature of the wort significantly however it was still too warm to pitch the yeast, so we placed the lidded bucket in a bathtub full of cool water as we began my Grolsch clone.

The Grolsch clone was a double batch (12 Gallons) which I always do if I am going to lager beer. So we put in 10 gallons of spring water into the brew kettle and turned on the burner to get the water to boiling temperature. I did not have any specialty grains for this brew, so we could cut the time down by an hour.

Signature Dish: Pumpkin Bread Pudding with trimmings - St. Petersburg Times

Signature Dish: Pumpkin Bread Pudding with trimmings - St. Petersburg Times

Just found a good website, that shows a keg converted into a fermentor

Here is the URL: http://users.adelphia.net/~aken75/Fermenter%20Lid/Fermenter%20Lid.html

Here are some pics...

Greetings all,

Just a quick update on the club.

One): A new member has been warmly welcomed to the club, Julie "The Brew Mistress"
Two): We have recently acquired 4 New Beer kegs to convert into brewing equipment. Much thanks to Julie for finding them for the club!!!! She truly is the a welcome addition to the club!

Next, what to do with the new kegs???? We have 5 kegs, now, One already in service as a brew kettle, I think we should convert another keg to a brew kettle, and the other two can serve as mash tuns. Which leaves us with one left....
What to do with the last keg? Convert it into a Fermentor?

The latest batches of American Amber Ale are done, and Julie's Batch of Belgium Wit is also finished. We have 12 Gals of Crimson Oktoberfest to bottle and another batch of lager to make....

Peace
All

PS here is a photo from the last brew day at my place. This is the Crimson Oktoberfest going into the primary. Photo courtesy thanks to Julie for remembering a camera, and to take pictures

Labor Day weekend brewing:

Hey all, just a quick update, on all the brews we have been working on.
First the fridge, with the new Johnson’s Temperature controller has been keeping the fridge at a perfect 55 degrees!
Today, the Cinco De Mayo, German Oktoberfest beer is being bottled, and put up to age, the Fosters clone lager will be racked and then lagered for a month or so.
Last night we racked the Cinnamon Mead, and the Chocolate Mead, and started the White Riesling wine for the wife.
A taste test of the cinnamon mead, and specific gravity check, showed an SG of 1.020 (pretty sweet still) and very tasty. A test of the Chocolate mead, showed a lower gravity of 1.010 and while still a little sweet, and chocolatety, it has improved considerably. We are planning an addition of Chocolate extract when the mead clears some more, and that should make it taste wonderful! The alcohol content is also very nice, not to hot and not too mild.
And finally a batch of plain sweet mead is going into the primary, 15 lbs of honey, some yeast nutrients, and spring water, and champagne yeast.
That’s it for the weekend, and this is truly a Labor of Love!

Johnsons Refrigerator Tempurature controls has been recieved and installed on the Lagering Fridge! Woot Woot!

And at present the fridge is at a balmy 55 degrees F. and holding steady. Perfect Lagering temps. and It has made it so much easier for me now that I do not have to run back and forth to keep turning the fridge on and off.

Next step is to bottle the lagers, and get them conditioned.

Peace Sisters
G

Hello all,

Another update on the two experimental meads I have fermenting. I tasted the Chocolate mead, and WOW was it dry! I guess 10lbs of honey is not near enough honey for my sweet tooth. Also the chocolate flavor while there was very week, and not even close to being palitable. So i racked out of the carbouy, into a clean primary fermentor, added 5 more lbs of honey, added a packet of Red-Star Schamagne yeast, and put a lid on it.

So i did the same for the cinnamon mead. You this was also very dry, and had a very strong cinnamon flavor, So I added 5 lbs of honey, tried another sample and it was much sweeter, and very tasty. Added the red-star yeast, and put the lid on it, and put it back.

I will let these re-start fermenting, and let them settle down for a month and give them another try. I will adjust the flavor accordingly. I do plan on adding some chocolate extract to bring out the flavor of the Chocolate mead. But I will wait to see how much more this mead ferments. I may have to add more honey to this one to get it right.

Peace

Greetings Fellow brewers....

Just an update on the two Experimental meads.

After cleaning as sterilizing two carboys, I began with the Chocolate mead.

I removed the lid, and was instantly hit with a not so wonderful smell. Kinda putrid smelling but after a few more minutes, you could tell there was a chocolate smell with yeast tones. I did a SG, check and the mead was at .993, a quick taste and ieven though it was not a pleasant taste, you could taste the chocolate, and only a tiny hint of the honey. I am hoping that as I have read in other recipies, this will age, and begin to taste better as time goes on. Based on the OG and the FG, the alcohol content is over 10%.

I put the airlock on the Chocolate Mead Carboy and began racking the Cinnamon/Apple Mead. Removing the lids was a lot better smelling than the Chocolate but still green smelling of yeast, and cinnamon. A SG reading of .990 was reached, and a taste test was much better than the Chocolate too. Very High Cinnamon flavour, almost a hot cinnamon aftertaste, and some honey flavors, almost no Apple flavours were detected.

Well I put the Airlocks on the recently racked meads, and began figuring out if I should add some extracts to fix the flavors, but figured its way to early to do anything drastic yet.

I will report back over the next year to hopefully provide you with better taste tests, and results of these two meads. I am also going to put up a batch of Plain Honey Mead, and a back up mead, just in case.

Peace all
G