Dunkelweizen

That's right... On Friday, I took a much needed vacation day from work and did a solo brew. I decided to go with a dunkelweizen, mainly for 2 reasons...

1.) I've never had a dunkelweizen

2.) I love wheat beers.

The brewing process went smoothly. Everything looked and smelled wonderful. I also picked up a 5 Gallon Better Bottle carboy (plastic and much cheaper in price than glass). Of course, the bottle did not have the Gallon marks on the side, so I topped it off to where I thought was 5 gallons. This batch may be short a few bottles of 2 cases, but no need to worry, there will be plenty to go around!

Wheat Malt Extract warming up

Steeping grains at 160 degrees

Adding hops to the wort
Dog & Kettle

Status Updates

Belgian Dubbel
The Belgian Dubbel just began its primary fermenting on Monday. It took about 30 hours before I seen any action taking play within the carboy. Right now it is blowing out a bubble every 5 seconds and a thick layer of krausen has formed on top of the carboy. The fermentation temperature is around 68 - 70 degrees. I will keep a close watch on it this weekend because the Philadelphia area is supposed to get temperatures in the 80's.

Ed Wort's Apfelwein
The apfelwein seems to be fermenting or doing its thing. It is in a plastic bucket fermenting, so I can not see what is going on. I smelled the top of the airlock to get a hint of what is coming out and it smelled like rotten eggs. This is common in certain strains of yeast. And since this yeast is a wine yeast, it probably produces some interesting smells.

Wild Flower Wheat
The Wild Flower Wheat is just about hitting the 2 week mark of fermentation and should be bottled this weekend. It is still shooting out a bubble about every minute or so. The fermentation temperature is around 64-66 degrees. I might try to warm up the Wild Flower Wheat a little bit to make sure fermentation is complete.

Fat Tire Amber Ale (Clone)
The Fat Tire Amber Ale has been conditioning just about 2 weeks now. I was impatient and sampled one at the 1 week mark, and it tasted wonderful. This recipie will be brewed again this weekend, but with some personal tweeks to the recipie.

Ed Wort's Apfelwein Recipie

Apfelwein (German Hard Cider)
This took 1st Place at the 2007 Alamo City Cerveza Fest BJCP sanctioned competition for the Cider and Apple Wine Category and 2nd Place for Best of Show for Meads & Ciders!

Ingredients

• 5 Gallons 100% Apple Juice (No preservatives or additives)
• 2 pounds of dextrose (corn sugar) in one pound bags
• 1 five gram packet of Montrachet Wine Yeast

Equipment

• 5 Gallon Carboy
• Carboy Cap or Stopper with Airlock
• Funnel

Instructions

1. First sanitize the carboy, airlock, funnel, stopper or carboy cap.
2. Open one gallon bottle of apple juice and pour half of it into the carboy using the funnel.
3. Open one bag of Dextrose and carefully add it to the now half full bottle of apple juice. Shake well.
4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3, then go to step 5.
5. Pour in the mixture of Apple Juice and Dextrose from both bottles into the carboy.
6. Add all but 1 quart of remaining 3 gallons of apple juice to the carboy.
7. Open the packet of Montrachet Yeast and pour it into the neck of the funnel.
8. Use the remaining quart of juice to wash down any yeast that sticks. I am able to fit all but 3 ounces of apple juice into a 5 gallon carboy. You may need to be patient to let the foam die down from all shaking and pouring.
9. Put your stopper or carboy cap on with an airlock and fill the airlock with cheap vodka. No bacteria will live in vodka and if you get suckback, you just boosted the abv. There’s no need to worry about filling up a carboy so full when you use Montrachet wine yeast. There is no Kreuzen, just a thin layer of bubbles.

Ferment at room temperature. It will become cloudy in a couple of days and remain so for a few weeks. In the 4th week, the yeast will begin to drop out and it will become clear. After at least 4 weeks, you can keg or bottle, but it is ok to leave it in the carboy for another month or so.

If you want to bottle and carbonate, ¾ cup of corn sugar will work fine. Use as you would carbonate a batch of beer.

Weekend Update

Ok, where to begin...

1. I took a pre-mature taste of the 1-week bottle conditioned Amber Ale and it is by far the best batch made to date. It actually tastes like beer (And a really good one to boot!). I am not going to open anymore until it's been sitting another week or two, but so far, it's a good beer!
2. On Saturday, a Belgian Dubbel (St. Francis' Blessed Midnight Dubbel) was brewed (should be roughly 8.2% ABV). This beer will ferment for about 2-3 weeks, then bottled. It will bottle condition around 2-3 months. For this type of beer, the longer it bottle conditions the better.
3. On Sunday, I made a batch of Ed Wort's Apfelwein. I will post the recipie. There is no actual boiling involved, and you can pick up all the ingredients for around 25$.

Sadly, I was real lazy and did not take any good pictures of either the Dubbel or Apfelwein being made. I will post some fermentation pictures during the process. The Dubbel is going to have a very vigorous ferment, so that should be interesting.

Wild Flower Wheat - Brewing Day

Like I said, it was a busy weekend! Not only did we bottle the Fat Tire Amber Ale and plant the Cascade hops, but we also decided to brew up a batch of beer (I can't leave those fermenters empty!).

We decided to go with the Wild Flower Wheat. No Grain is used during the brewing! Just the chamomile flowers, honey, malt and hops. The final alcohol content should be around 6%! Mmmm, strong beer!

Ingredients:

6.6 lbs. of Unhopped Bavarian Wheat Malt Extract
2 oz. of Chamomile Flowers

1 lb. of Wild Flower Honey
2 oz. of Hallertau Hops - 3.9% Alpha Acid

Wyeast American Hefeweizen Yeast WLP320
Servomyces yeast nutrient

5 oz. of Priming Sugar

2.5 Gallons of Spring Water*

Brewing went very well. We tried to be much more sterile with everything we did. We also decided to try topping off the wort with Spring Water. Hopefully doing this will not leave the off aftertastes when it comes time for bottling.

Bavarian Wheat Malt Extract & Honey

Hops and 2 oz. of Chamomile in a tied Muslin Bag

1 Hour of Fermenting

Check out the new blow-off tube setup!! Nice. More to come!

Fat Tire Amber Ale (Clone) - 1 Hour After Boil

Below are some pictures of the wort in the carboy 1 hour after boiling. (Notice the German Weiszbeir in the background! - Pictures to be added later)

Like I previously mentioned, I am a little unsure of the color. Looking at a picture of the Fat Tire Amber Ale, it looked a little more red in color. Ours seems to be somewhat chocolate brown. I will keep posting pictures during the ferment. The temperature of the basement is about 65 degrees which is perfect for primary fermentation.

What the beer color should turn out as... we shall see!

Fat Tire Amber Ale (Clone) - Brewing Day

On Sunday (3/29/09), the team gathered in the backyard to begin brewing the Fat Tire Amber Ale. Below are some pictures from the Brewing Day. We forgot to take the O.G reading! Oops! But as far as I can tell, everything seems to be going as it should. One concern I do have is the color of the wort. It seems a tad dark. This could be good or bad, we shall see. Also not included in the pictures was the terrential downpour & hail that nearly flooded the backyard.

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs. Laaglander plain extra-light DME
• 0.50 lb. crystal malt (20° Lovibond)
• 0.50 lb. crystal malt (40° Lovibond)
• 0.50 lb. carapils malt
• 0.50 lb. Munich malt
• 0.50 lb. biscuit malt
• 0.50 lb. chocolate malt
• 3 AAUs Willamette pellet hops (0.66 oz. at 4.5% alpha acid)
• 1.33 AAUs Fuggle pellet hops (0.33 oz. at 4% alpha acid)
• 2 AAUs Fuggle pellet hops (0.50 oz. at 4% alpha acid)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• 2/3 to 3/4 cup corn sugar to prime
• California Ale Wyeast 1056

Dr. Robert drinking a brew.

The yeast!

Wort starting to foam up a bit.

Stirring the wort so it doesn't boil over.

Lifting the wort off the flame because it's about to boil over.

Flame got turned off due to almost boiling over.

Wort back on the flame!