What'cha brewin'? (Homebrew thread)

[kaese]

Today in microbiology I learned a lot about the biochemistry behind beer brewing and cheese making and general food fermentation. It has inspired me to try making my own cider or kombucha again. Or maybe even rice wine.
Fermentation adventures to be continued.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Freekeh Heffeweizen brew day was today.  Now on primary.
Bottling the black IPA tomorrow.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Black IPA not nearly as hoppy as I woulda liked, but still not bad so far.  Hopefully conditioning improves it.



Larger version: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BFlCQTtCEAAO_Tl.jpg:large

[Evil Cheese]

Bottled my dunkelweizen yesterday. Nice color and I hit the FG right on so I'm happy about that. I'm a little worried about the flavor though.You get the malt and the banana/bubble gum ester notes up front and it finishes nice, but it seems a little bland in the middle. I was also expecting it to taste a little more wheaty than it does. Hopefully a few weeks in the bottle will help the flavor mature.

[CaffeinePowered]

Anyone have a rich aunt/uncle?

We should all just move to Chicago and start a brewery.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Wow, this heffe is gonna be CLOUDY.  We'll see what happens over the next 2 weeks but watch out for the sediment on this one XD

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Well it's looking really good.  Developing that nice red-brown glow of a heffeweizen.

[Evil Cheese]

Bottled my bock and tasted my finished dunkelweizen over the weekend. I'm going to reserve judgement on the bock until after it's been in the bottle for a few weeks, but almost all of the distracting busy flavors are gone which makes the malt flavors stand out even more. It was also short a few bottles, so it probably could have used a little more water during brew day.

The dunkelweizen came out pretty good for my first real beer. Nice cloudy nut brown color, malty and estery up front with a nice clean finish and a hint of bitterness and mild hops. I still think it's a little thin in the middle, but nothing that makes it undrinkable. It's also understandable as I did forget 4 oz of carapils malt that the recipe called for. It's a very easy drinking beer, my dad drank four of them in a row within about an hour (whilst achieving an unexpected buzz) and he's your standard Bud light kind of guy. Considering I brewed this one with him in mind, mission accomplished on that front. This one also seemed a little under carbonated, so I'll have to make sure I'm using enough priming sugar in the future.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Just came up with the best name for my "brewery."  Closet Brewing: The Beer is in the closet, not the brewer. XD

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

FREEKEH HEFFEWEIZEN IS GO

[Evil Cheese]

Looks good. I look forward to trying it.

[Litrecola]

Will post my two current brews! Made a grapefruit hefe and a American IPA.

This one is the grapefruit hefe [Extract], which i bottled today. Color looks nice, tastes like a light hefe with a little bit of grapefruit. Curious about post carb aroma as i used Citra at flameout.


This one is an america IPA [Partial mash] i made about a week after the hefe. So far it tastes pretty great! Currently dry hopping with 1oz each of Citra and I think cascade, maybe centennial, w/e i got it written down somewhere

[Evil Cheese]

I'm very happy with how my bock turned out. It starts off with a roasted almost a dark chocolate flavor up front from the chocolate malt (not actual chocolate), stays strong through the middle with nice full body and develops a sort of toasted bread maltiness, and then finishes softly with a hint of earthy/spicy/citrus hops. It reminds me a bit of drinking a malty stout without all the extra busy flavors. Carbonation is good in this one, so whatever happened with the dunkelweizen I have managed to resolve this time around. My bock seems a good bit stronger in malt flavor and alcohol content, and is also darker than most of the other commercially available bocks I've been able to find around here. Considering the only ones I've found have come from Yuengling and Starr Hill, I'm not sure if they're good representatives of the style or not.

[at0m]

I approve of cloudy beer.

[Luinbariel]

Well it was mead bottling day today!

Thanks to litrecola and rilnac for helping!

[Luinbariel]

Also, TIL that if I post to the Mead subreddit, it will immediately be assumed that I'm a dude.

[Didzo]

I tasted some of the Mr. Beer my apartmentmate and I had been producing. Two bottles were consumed, and here are my thoughts:

The color was golden and cloudy, almost glowing with a hue that can only be described as "stagnant urine." The pour was truly fantastic, yielding a magnificent head of foam reminiscent of dish soap suds. It covered roughly 9/10 of the height of the stein. Majestic. The aroma reminded me of... yeast, except unpleasant. The flavor was beer-like, yeasty, and overly sweet, with an unpleasant aftertaste that accumulated after each gulp. With every sip, it felt as if my insides were becoming coated with some bear equivalent of drain-o. On the plus side, it had carbonation and did not taste like it had much alcohol. But there certainly was alcohol present, judging by the signals my body was sending me.

6 more bottles to consume. Fuck yeah.

[Evil Cheese]

With every sip, it felt as if my insides were becoming coated with some bear equivalent of drain-o. On the plus side, it had carbonation and did not taste like it had much alcohol. But there certainly was alcohol present, judging by the signals my body was sending me.

I had the same experience with mine. I think the strain of yeast they include with that kit is a bit fussy and has a tenancy to produce a high amount fusel alcohol if the temps aren't monitored closely. Fusel alcohol doesn't really have a flavor and usually is described as you mentioned, a sort of burning accompanied by obvious signs of intoxication.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Tried a bottle of the black ale with caff last weekend.  Not nearly as hoppy as I was hoping, but it was pretty good.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Well shit.  Just had a bottle bomb.  Hopefully an isolated incident and not a systemic infection issue.  If it's an infection in my plastic then all 3 batches are fucked.  Recapping everything asap.  On the plus side, the break pattern of the bottle *looked* like it might have been a flaw in the glass.

*edit*  Well everything is in some kind of sealed container now.  Moving forward I think I'm going to get some rubbermaid containers for shit now.  Easier for storage and transport, too.  Also tried some of the remaining beer.  Tasted like ass.  I think it must have been some kind of infection in one bottle.  All the others in the series tasted fine.

*edit*

Well, none of the bottles I opened and recapped were gushers so hopefully I'm in the clear.  Again, rubbermaid is on tap for tomorrow.