My very first foam over occurred tonight, one day into primary for my Blackberry Wheat Ale. That meant I needed to get a blow-off tube made, and quickly. As it was 2 a.m. in the morning, I had to work with the supplied I had on hand.
The foam actually clogged the airlock and I had a bit of foam and beer come out around the edges of the lid, a first for me. I could see the lid bubbling around the edges, meaning that the lid really doesn’t have a good seal. I swapped the entire bucket/lid set for one I think will seal better (from #2 to #1). I poured the beer from one bucket to the other, so it was aerated nicely in the process.
I made a makeshift blow-off tube by attaching the drain-tube from my steam juicer to the airlock stem, and running that into a jar of water. It looked like it might work initially, video below:
The Black Beaut Porter has turned out to be a solid dark beer. It has now been about six weeks and I am down to the last six-pack of this brew. Very tasty, warm or cold, with nice malty character and subtle hops.
The Sierra Cascade II was our second recipe based off of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. This one was a bit more complex than our last with some added grains and a different selection of hops.
These have been in the bottle for six weeks now and many of the beers are already gone. I decided I should do a review of one before they all disappear.
The beer pours a rich amber color with a nice head. The foam of the head is made of very fine bubbles, and the head stays throughout the beer. There is a small bit of lacing on the sides of the glass as you drink the beer.
Since I’ve been trying a few different wine recipes lately, I decided to do a rhubarb wine using some of the rhubarb that grows under our apple tree. I’ve been reading a bit about making wine with juice instead of whole fruit, and I decided to try juicing the rhubarb with a steam juicer and adding that juice to the must instead of whole rhubarb. We probably had enough for a 5 gallon batch, but I just wanted to make a couple gallons like I’ve done with the raspberry and salmonberry wine. Here is a recipe for rhubarb wine, 2 gallon batch.
Made another batch of beer today, making this my third brew in as many days. Decided to do a lighter beer, but something with some kick to it. I recall having Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale and it being a good beer, and reading reviews of the beer made me want to attempt a clone. Here is the recipe I will be using to brew a 5.5 gallon batch of my Dead Clone Ale, a nice Helles Bock style beer. It should have a nice malty character with some hops to balance but not to overpower the malt.
My mom found a spot with lots of salmonberries along the Soos Creek Trail so I headed out there and did some picking. After 4 hours I came away with 6.5 pounds of fresh salmonberries, quite a haul. I decided that after making the raspberry wine yesterday, salmonberries would be just as easy and would have a slightly different flavor. I looked for a salmonberry wine recipe but did not find one, so I modified my raspberry wine recipe and had some input from the people at my LHBS, Larry’s Brewing Supply. Here is the final recipe (again, making a 2 gallon batch):
With more raspberries than I can ever remember having at one time, I decided to make up a batch of raspberry wine before letting all the berries go to waste. After an hour of picking I ended up with six pounds of fresh raspberries from our garden. I looked up a few recipes for a good raspberry wine and here is the recipe I decided to go with, making what I think should turn out to be a two-gallon batch:
Wanted to make a good porter, so we came up with a recipe for a Black Butte Porter clone, which we will call the Black Beaut. This beer should be a nice dark beer with some roasted malt characteristics and a smooth mouthfeel.
