BeerBorg

This afternoon I bottled 2 bottles of "mead".

This was an experiment to see if I could get some wild yeast going from some raw local honey and harvest it.

One quart mason jar started at 17 brix and ended up at 8 brix. Per a calculator that is OG of 1.070 to a corrected FG of 1.008, for maybe 8.1 ABV.

A small sample of the young mead is; aroma-yeasty/bready; taste-slight honey, slight alcohol, and "other flavors", not bad.

The harvested yeast will be used to brew up a 1/2 gallon of beer one of the next couple weekends.

The_Professor wrote:This afternoon I bottled 2 bottles of "mead".

This was an experiment to see if I could get some wild yeast going from some raw local honey and harvest it.

One quart mason jar started at 17 brix and ended up at 8 brix. Per a calculator that is OG of 1.070 to a corrected FG of 1.008, for maybe 8.1 ABV.

A small sample of the young mead is; aroma-yeasty/bready; taste-slight honey, slight alcohol, and "other flavors", not bad.

The harvested yeast will be used to brew up a 1/2 gallon of beer one of the next couple weekends.

Did you simply dilute it to 1.070 and then let it spontaneously ferment? That sounds like fun if so (that's *real mead*).

mashani wrote:Did you simply dilute it to 1.070 and then let it spontaneously ferment? That sounds like fun if so (that's *real mead*).

Almost.

I started with a small jar of raw honey, a couple cups of water, and a pinch of Fermaid K in one quart jar. The gravity went off my refractometer.
After a week I split that into 2 quart jars with more water, one starting at 17 brix and the other at 18 brix. Another pinch of Fermaid K.
The jar at 18 brix never moved. The jar at 17 fermented.

But, yeah, add water to raw honey, add yeast nutrient, ferment.

The_Professor wrote:

mashani wrote:Did you simply dilute it to 1.070 and then let it spontaneously ferment? That sounds like fun if so (that's *real mead*).

Almost.

I started with a small jar of raw honey, a couple cups of water, and a pinch of Fermaid K in one quart jar. The gravity went off my refractometer.
After a week I split that into 2 quart jars with more water, one starting at 17 brix and the other at 18 brix. Another pinch of Fermaid K.
The jar at 18 brix never moved. The jar at 17 fermented.

But, yeah, add water to raw honey, add yeast nutrient, ferment.

I see a 1 gallon jug with an airlock in my future.

Was up at the crack of dawn Saturday to hel a friend redo his kitchen as a surprise to his wife who is on vacation (and hoping he will help me with my plumbing in the near future). Then had to pick up a friend from Texas at the airport to see his ailing Mom on what I thought would be Saturday night. Plane was scheduled to arrive at 11:30p. It showed up around 2:30a, and by the time I got him to where he needed to go and shared a beer it was about 5:30a and the roosters were crowing when I got home. Since you cant drink all day unless you start early, I figured I would throw together a kitchen sink beer and pull an all nighter. Have a ton of Nugget and Cascade so decided to use some up. Did some shirt pocket math to come up with the relatively low IBUs due to aging (was 2012 harvest) and made some adjustments.

However, in my punch-drunk stooper from lack of sleep, I misread my brew sheet and ended up adding the last addition as a 10 minute boil rather than a 10 minute steep (I kept wondering why I took my planned steep out but never questioned my "better" judgement) so will be a bit more bitter than I was planning. Now, I will probably add the dry hop 6 days prior to bottling and if not aromatic enough add another oz at 3 days prior - lordy knows I have enough hops in the freezer. All in all, what a chaotic night!

CHAOS IPA

Amount Item Type % or IBU
8 lbs Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 80.0 %
8.0 oz Wheat Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 5.0 %

1 lbs Munich I (Weyermann) (7.1 SRM) Grain 10.0 %
8.0 oz Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5.0 %

1.50 oz Nugget [12.10%] (60 min) Hops 55.0 IBU
2.00 oz Cascade [4.00%] (15 min) Hops 12.0 IBU
1.50 oz Cascade [4.00%] (10 min) (Aroma Hops-Steep)
1.50 oz Cascade [4.00%] (Dry Hop 3 days)

1 Pkgs London Ale III (Wyeast Labs #1318) Yeast-Ale (washed & harvested)

I made two gallons of mead on Sunday night. Nothing fancy, out of a kit a couple of years old, so I ditched the yeast for some fresh 71B-1112 I had picked up.

Well, the yeasts had quite the party as a slept last night.


Ahhhh, the joys of homebrewing.

Root Skier wrote:Well, the yeasts had quite the party as a slept last night....
Ahhhh, the joys of homebrewing.

<banging floor with cane>
"Quiet down there you partying young punks! Im trying to sleep!!!"

Good weekend. Brewed 5 more gallons of Berliner, it's souring under heat lamp now.
Collected wort from 5 gallons that was souring....something weird got into this batch though. It's got 2 weeks to straighten up before I dump it.
And I racked 5 more gallons that was done fermenting onto 4.5lbs of raspberries. It's going through a second ferm now and looks/smells wonderful.

4 weeks ago I brewed an Octoberfest Vienna Lager Mod (Mod III) and bottled it last weekend.
3 weeks ago I brewed a Pilothouse Pilsner Mod (Mod IV or V by now) and will bottle it this weekend.

I may actually have an Octoberfest to drink of my own making this year! Last year I timed it wrong and it was all gone by the time October rolled around.

The PP Mod is hopped up as I used it as a base for more of a pale ale - I did that once before and we really liked the outcome. It's cold crashing now and I tossed the dry hops in tonite.

I brewed a 5 gal extract batch of Oktoberfest Lager last night using Wyeast 2633. I'm fermenting this one in the low-mid 50 deg range in the primary, then after a short d-rest when transferred to the secondary I'll lager until fall in the low 40's.

Bottled 2.5 gallons of Saison D'etre this morning. Still new to Saisons, but I think this is a good recipe. 3# of Light DME, 1# Wheat DME, Saaz hops at 60, 22, and 7, and some crushed coriander seed at 7. Temp was around 75 or so (may have spiked to 77). There's a fruity, kind of apricot taste to it, with some pepper lurking in the background.

Seemed overly sweet, but I primed it with 3 oz of sugar to get high, effervescent carbonation. I think it'll be less sweet and more dry (but still fruity) after it carbs properly. I'm looking forward to this one.

Did another Coconut IPA. You can't beat the smell of the coconut on a boiling wort. I really enjoyed the first one and waited too long to do it again. I've not done a rebrew in a long time and I need to revisit my better beers.

Beer-lord wrote:Did another Coconut IPA. You can't beat the smell of the coconut on a boiling wort. I really enjoyed the first one and waited too long to do it again. I've not done a rebrew in a long time and I need to revisit my better beers.

Hey, Paul, would you care to share the recipe for that? It intrigues me.

Brewed another batch of Stone Levitation yesterday, for two reasons.
Reason one is that's a damn good beer.
Reason two is I'm growing yeast to put into 10 gallons of a Rum Barrel Vanilla Stout that will be aged in this. The plan is to do a few clean beers in the barrel before turning it into my Solera Sour barrel.

Awesome! My LHBS tried to talk me into a barrel yesterday and I almost did but figured I better wait until I know what I'm doing.