Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Even Flow

Well, nothing too even about it. I have one tap that seems to want to give off a hell of a lot more foam than the other and I don't know why.
But that's neither here nor there. Some updates have occurred. The stout I brewed a couple weeks ago had an OG of 1.057, which is just about perfect in my opinion. It took me some time to decide on which yeast to use for that brew. I had read in BYO that a London ESB Ale yeast would work very well, but then had some reservations about it's low attenuation levels (only about 69%). Well, I fermented this beer in the fridge for two weeks at 68 degrees, and was very pleased to see that it attenuated very well. FG was 1.016, for a total of 71.9% attenuation. OK, that's not a huge difference, but it's better than I expected. Since this is a stout and doesn't really need much clarity, I just went straight to the bottle with it. I indent to condition and age it two months at least. Right now it has a strong roasted flavor to it, but it's very smooth and balanced. I'm fairly certain that roastiness will mellow out in time.

We finally kicked the Scottish Light keg. That was a very popular brew, and I have every intention on making it again soon only with a little more abv this time. We're coming up to the end of the Litehaus Wheat keg as well, but I just kegged the 5 gal strawberry Litehaus batch and it's hooked up to the gas right now at 13 psi (hoping for about 2.3 vols). Soon I will have another keg to fill and that will be the Holiday Ale, which I'm looking forward to finally trying.
There's so much beer I want to make and so little time, and too few taps.

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