Irish Red Tasting Notes

My first batch of beer is finally ready! So, I thought I'd do a little tasting to show how it turned out. For those of you who are not familiar with beer tasting, there are five basic things that you look for: Appearance, Smell, Taste, Mouthfeel, and overall Drinkability. I'll give a description of the beer in each of these areas.

A: Deep amber color - consistent with the style. Head of about 1 to 2 fingers, though it dissipates fairly quickly.

S: Sweet. Small hint of alcohol, but just barely noticeable.

T: Fairly thin malt with just a hint of hoppy bitterness. If you don't like IPA's, you will probably be able to drink this beer pretty easily. It's a little bready, but there is a bit of a twang to it that is hard to place. I think it may be from the yeast that I used. If/when I make this beer again, I will most likely use a different yeast. Can't really taste the alcohol in it, which is a plus.

M: Interesting carbonation. Fairly thin, definitely easy to drink.

D: I like it. It's not my favorite beer ever, but it is definitely drinkable. I will most likely try to make this again and make subtle tweaks to it to try and perfect it.

I hope you enjoyed this tasting profile. If you get a chance to try it, please comment with what you think. Nobody's tastes are exactly the same, so what I taste may be different from what you taste! I definitely look forward to trying the next beer. I think it's going to be even better!

Message (and beer) in a Bottle

Ok, after a while, I finally got around to bottling The Innkeeper! It went pretty smoothly, so that's always a plus. I had my trusty assistant Randall take some pictures for me since I was a little busy, so I hope you enjoy!


Before I did anything, I washed and sanitized my bottles, bottling bucket, auto-siphon, bottle-filler, and hoses. Then, I boiled a solution of water and sugar (2 cups water to 5/8 cup sugar) and added it to my bottling bucket. I then siphoned the beer directly on top of this solution. This is me siphoning the beer!


A special thanks to Anthony Bourdain for stopping by to help me hold up the carboy... with the point of his knife.


After I had siphoned all of the beer to the bottling bucket, leaving behind the yeast and other trub in the bottom of the carboy, I began filling the bottles. I use a bottle-filler and hose attached to a spigot at the bottom of the bucket. The filler has a stop in the bottom that allows the beer to flow through only when it touches the bottom of the beer bottle.


After filling the bottles, I capped them using my Red Baron capper. I used uncrimped caps that had been sterilized in my StarSan solution.

After I had finished filling and capping all of the bottles that I could (I had fewer bottles this time than with the Irish Red due to the boilover), I put them away in a nice, dark place to finish. The sugar solution that I added to the beer will be eaten up by the leftover yeast and converted to CO2, naturally carbonating the beer. This process will take about two weeks and it will be ready to drink!

I tried a small sample of the un-carbed beer, and I really think this beer is going to be delicious! I'm really excited!

I also tried my first bottle of Irish Red yesterday, and it was ready to go! I'll post some tasting notes of that either tonight or tomorrow! Until then, "All for Brew, and Brew for All!"

Bottling Postponed.... again.

Ok, tomorrow I'm REALLY going to bottle. I just got a little caught up in some schoolwork today and didn't really have any time to bottle. So, I'm definitely bottling tomorrow. Sorry for the delay!

Bottling Tomorrow

So, before I left for the weekend, the krausen (the head that forms on the beer when it's fermenting) had not fallen into the beer. That normally means that it's not quite done fermenting. Therefore I decided to wait a little bit on bottling.

When I got back, the krausen had fallen (though it looked like it had only just fallen). So, I took a gravity reading. It weighed in at 1.009 from 1.038. This puts the abv at about 3.8%. This is, of course, pretty low, but that is what I expected. This morning I checked the gravity again and it was holding steady at 1.009 meaning that it is ready to bottle.

Originally I was going to bottle today, but two things happened that prevented me from that:

1) I realized that not all of the bottles I needed had been de-labeled. So, I required a little more prep first.

2) My beloved Toomer's Corner Trees were poisoned, most likely irreparably. If you want to read more about what happened, click HERE. After hearing this, I really didn't want to do anything. I certainly didn't want to bottle my beer on this anniversary.

Therefore, I decided that I will bottle tomorrow when I don't have class.

I'll let you know how that goes and will try to post some pictures! Until then, War Eagle!

Bottling and Waldo Lake

Last Sunday, before the Super Bowl, I bottled my first batch! Everything went pretty smoothly, and I now have 48 bottles of Irish Red conditioning. In about a week and a half, they will be ready to drink! I'm really excited to try my new beer, and if the pre-bottling sample I tried is any indication, it will be goooood!

I'm going back home for the weekend, but my next batch should be ready to bottle Sunday. So, I will most likely bottle it either Sunday night after I get back or on Monday. One day after it is ready won't hurt anything, so it should be fine to rest over the weekend. I'll try to find someone to take pictures this time, but it was just too hard to do everything I had to do AND take pictures. Don't worry though, you'll see the long, drawn-out bottling process soon enough!

Also, after I bottle The Innkeeper, my primary fermenter will be free to house my next beer! This beer is called the "Waldo Lake Amber Ale." It was requested by my sister, and it sounds like it will be very good! The Northern Brewer website says that it "shows off a brilliant russet-amber with a cap of white and draws you in with a nose of citrus, lemongrass, and malt. A classic combo of northwest hops offsets a dense, chewy, caramelly sweetness and gets you ready for a big finish."

Interesting note, I actually talked to the guy who developed this recipe. His name is Denny, and he is a very active homebrewer and regular contributor to the Northern Brewer forums. He talked about the reason he formulated this recipe on that website.

I know some crazy people, but one of the craziest is my good friend Mel Lemay. Every year, she runs the Where's Waldo 100K Ultramarathon around Waldo Lake in the Oregon Cascade Mountain Range. The race starts at an elevation of 5120 feet, and goes to over 7800 feet at points. There's a total of over 11,000 feet of elevation change over the course of the race. You have to be crazy to do that! Several of us go camping at the lake to give moral support when she runs and I developed this recipe to her tastes so shed have something to look forward to at the end of the race. Its a smooth amber ale... not too hoppy, but with enough bitterness and hop flavor that the rest of us enjoy it too.

Anyway, I'm really excited to brew this beer. It will also be my first time to use a yeast starter. This will allow the original gravity (and the final ABV) to be a little higher than my first two batches.

I hope my sister likes it! I'm sure I will!

Innkeeper Brewday.

If you have not been following me before now, check out misdemeanorbrewing.tumblr.com to see my past posts. Now, however, I'm going to start anew on this page!

About a week ago I brewed my second batch of beer. I had a little snag, but nothing too bad! Overall, everything went well, and now the beer has bubbling away in the fermenter for about a week.

I've had a few people criticize the fact that I didn't have any pictures on my blog. So, I took a lot of pictures on brewday and I'll share them here! Here it goes!



These were the contents of the kit that I ordered from Northern Brewer called "The Innkeeper."



I got about 2.5 gallons of water into a pot and began to heat it.



I steeped the specialty grains in the water to extract color and flavor.



Once the temp of the water reached 170ºF, I removed the specialty grains. If you leave them in too long, it can extract the tannins out of those grains and make the beer taste bad (or at least not good).



After the bag of grains was removed, I brought the water up to a boil. After that, I removed the water from the eye and added the malt extract. This recipe called for a dry malt extract (DME), liquid malt extract (LME), and corn sugar. After this addition, the mixture is called Wort. I couldn't really take a picture of this since I needed both hands to stir it. This is where I hit a little snag. While trying to bring the water back up to a boil, I got distracted by taking pictures, and my wort boiled over a little bit. I didn't lose a lot of wort, but it did make my final gravity a little lower than it should have been. Anyway, I just took the advice of Charlie Papazian: "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!" Since I didn't have any homebrew yet, I just did a little breathing exercise and carried on with the brewday.



So, after I got the beer back to a boil, I put in the first addition of hops. I know that some of you might be thinking, "Wait, that's not hops, that's rabbit food!" But it's definitely hops. It's just not the iconic hop cone that you are used to seeing. These are hop pellets, which are dried, pressed hope cones. Most brewers don't use whole hops unless they grow them themselves. Now, that's not to say that you CAN'T use whole hops and you can also buy whole hops, but they are just not as readily available.



I had my trusty assistant Kenny take a picture of me adding the hops to the boil. I did this three times over the 60 minute boil with three different varieties of hops.



After the 60 minute boil was done, I had to cool it as rapidly as possible. I did this using an ice bath in my sink. Something that would work better would be a Wort Chiller, but I just can't quite afford that yet. Soon!



While the wort was chilling, I sanitized everything that would be touching it from now on: funnel, yeast package, airlock, scissors, and the carboy (I sanitized everything, so if I left something out of this list, it's not because I didn't sanitize it). This is the sanitized carboy. The foil on top is a sanitized piece of aluminum foil to keep any microbes or whatnot out. The foam inside is the leftover foam from the StarSan. It is completely safe, and I was able to pour the beer directly on top of the foam. Don't Fear the Foam!

This is where I couldn't really do much with my camera since I needed about 6 hands to do everything else. Basically, once the wort was chilled, I poured it into the carboy. I took a gravity reading, and it was about 1.038, which was less than what it should be. I'm attributing this to loss of fermentable sugars and water due to the boilover. No big though, it will just have a little less ABV.



So, after I got all of the wort transferred, aerated, and measured, it was time to pitch the yeast. This is a pic of the yeast I took before I started brewing. If I had taken it right before I pitched it, this bag would have been swollen. That's because this type of yeast has an activator in it to proof the yeast. However, I was so focused on making sure everything else went right that I forgot to take a picture of the swollen yeast packet! Sorry!



I then put on an airlock and put it in my closet! The other carboy is the Irish Red Ale that was conditioning in the secondary fermenter.

So, it has been fermenting for about a week now and it's still going strong! In about a week, if it's ready, I will bottle it!

Today I'm going to be bottling that Irish Red Ale. After I bottle, it will take about 2 weeks to condition and then it will be ready to drink! I'm excited! I'll let you know how that goes! Until then, "All for brew, and brew for all!"