Piety and scholarship under Lupulos.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Dry Hopped Aspis Hoplon in bottles

Got 10 16oz+ bottles filled. Had a taste of the good stuff. Nice hop aroma, huge roasted malt flavor. Was a bit sweet because I tasted after adding the sugar. Yum! Eager to try it after a week or two in the bottle.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Aspis Hoplon in primary/secondary

Moved half of Aspis to a secondary. Boiled about an ounce of oak cubes (French Oak, house toast) in water for 10 minutes, put them in. Cut open a vanilla bean, scraped the contents into a shot of Caribbean rum, then diced the rind and put that in the rum too. Let it soak for 10 minutes or so to sanitize, then put that in the secondary.

To the half remaining in primary, I added dry hops. I'll leave them in for 3-7 days then bottle that batch. The other will stay on the oak and vanilla for as long as it can.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Mountainbeering tasting notes (2)

We're at day 10 in the bottle.

Appearance: Pours a caramel red with nicer carbonation than last time. Still, a quickly dissipating head which is rescued by some nice lacing. The yeast have dropped, and there's a pleasant absence of chill haze.

Aroma: Nice, deep hop aroma with a lot of apple and a kiss of honey. Signs of prematurity. The aroma is not as pronounced as last time.

Taste: Pleasantly bitter with a lick of sweetness. Not quite a finish to match the aroma, but tasty nonetheless.

Mouth: More carbonated than last time. A lingering bitterness.

Drinkability: Love it. 5-6% can be sessioned. Too bad I ended up at 2G.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Mountainbeering tasting notes

Popped a cold bottle today.

Yeast is still suspended, and it's flat. Trails of sugar are visible. Darker than expected, probably from the 40L caramel. I might switch to 10L or 20L next time.

Hop aroma is absolutely delicious. Flavor not as strong, but needs more conditioning and carbonation.

I am psyched about this one.

Aspis Hoplon in primary

Aspis Hoplon was a success up until the last steps. I hit the temps and volume perfectly. If you haven't brewed a stout before, do yourself a favor and try it: the smell of the wort is delicious.

Problems:
  1. Second time using whirlfloc, which makes some crazy coagulation. Am I using too much for a 3G batch? Can't really split the tablet. The problem is that, to speed cooling, I whirlpooled the wort while chilling, which stirred up the trub a bit. The filter clogged nearly immediately every time I tried to siphon to primary. I have heard you should wait after cooling for 30 minutes or so for the trub to drop out, but a recent infestation of fruit flies had me worried to leave it. Not to mention, it was midnight and I was tired.
  2. Usually I keep the primary cool by putting it in a cooler with water and ice packs. At the beginning, I use ice to get it extra cool. This time, I just used ice packs and it did not get cool enough (75 by morning). Will I get fusels and bananas? Probably. Oh well.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Mountainbeering in bottles

Bottled "Mountainbeering" two days ago. Little nervous that I used some stale StarSan, it was a bit cloudy which means it's either shot or very near it. Most of the stuff was pretty clean and I'm trying not to get too nervous about it. I'm beginning to think that contamination is more difficult than portrayed, although sanitation is easy and should be maintained regardless.

I had a taste and it was quite good. Different hops than P4P imparted a fruitier flavor. The added salts may have improved the hop character although there seemed to be a perceptible saltiness.

Tried a new trick to filter the wort to the bottling bucket. Kept a tea filter under the hose, and the hose low enough to be under the surface of liquid to minimize oxygen exposure. Seemed to trap a good bit of trub and the beers are clear enough.

Wednesday I'm doing Aspis Hoplon.