Honey Wheat in the secondary 02/22/10

Natalie's honey wheat beer in the secondary on her B-Day. Happy Birthday honey! This has a wonderful aroma to it. It looks like butterscotch in this pic, but it has a nice mellow yellow honey hue. Can't wait to try this one next month!

Withoutadoubt Stoubt

Distributing a few at quittin time today! Hope everyone will enjoy!

Cheers!

Stout pics... Aw yeah...

A nice deep brown/black coloring... Very smooth! I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Big stout, small glass! This is in the sampling glass from Alefest Columbus 2010. I called Listermann's in Cinci to ask how long I should wait and the guy there acted like I was an idiot for not having tasted it already! It had only been in bottles for a week, but I went for it and I'm sure as hell glad I did. REALLY tasty stuff.

Will be perfect to bid a fond farewell to this cold ass winter!

Cheers!

Honey Weizen boil 02/14/10

Scroll down to the bottom to see the whole process! Here is the siphon from boil pot to fermenter. Nice honey color, with a yellow hue. Hope it'll stay this color through to bottling/imbibing!
Here is the first use of my immersion wort chiller I purchased from Northern Brewer. I had a 77 degree batch of wort in about 10 minutes. Used to take almost an hour to get down to that temp. This is supposed to help make a crisper/purer brew, given the rapid cooling. Can't wait to try the results!

Heating up the Wheat LME and clover honey.

Here are the ingredients in my Northern Brewer Honey Weizen kit. Boiled on St. V day. Looking forward to a nice spring ale!

Here are some pics of the Valentine's day Honey Weizen. Not sure what we'll call it, mayber Cupidity or something corny like that. It was a really easy boil, with simply LME, an early tettnang hop addtion and a late honey addition. Hopefully we'll have a nice honey mouthfeel and aroma!

Next Generations!

Valentine's Day 2010 boiled our Honey Weiz for my honey. It's got a very viscous yet sticky feel to it, just during the boil! This is the first brew using my new immersion wort chiller from NB. I hope it makes a nice/crisp finish on the brew.

Stout update, 02/15 - Tasted the imperial stout this evening... While it's not as boozy (yet) as we'd predicted, it's incredibly smooth. A nice banana type aroma. Plenty of balance, no bitterness at all. Another tasty brew! Looking forward to a little more carbonation over the next week or so. Pics to follow....

Cheers!

VW

Stout Bottling Day 02/09/10

Here is the finished yield! This is a Listermann's Imperial Stout. It smells pretty boozy, so hopefully it is, in fact, imperial. On deck is this Northern Brewer Honey Weiss Kit. Gonna start that this weekend. Woohoo! Scroll down to see the bottling process for the stout...

Here is the cleaning station. Had to ensure all bottles were sanitized and ready to go.

This was quite the feat; 50 some odd bottles upside down drying at once. The last time I tried this I had em all fall over a couple times. Got lucky with no casualties this time around. Booyah!

Siphoning the stout from secondary to bottling bucket. And of course, and in keeping with the tradition in homebrewing.... Having my own IPA while I brew!

Black & Decker portable workbench proves perfect for the racking procedure. Almost done here. Just tilted the carboy a bit to get the last of the brew.

Once in the bottling bucket, I used the bottling wand to transfer to each bottle. The yield this time was 46 12 oz and 3 22 oz bottles. I didn't show this process on my last brew post, so I figured share for anyone out there looking for pointers.

I'm a pretty relaxed brewer. I will eventually graduate up to all grain, but I'm really enjoying the hell out of extract brewing. It's very gratifying and as I've said before.... I owe it to homebrewing to brew a few extract brews before trying to make my own recipe!

Next up... Boiling the Honey Weiss!

Cheers everybody!

Alefest Columbus 02/06/10

Here is Alefest 2010 at The Aladdin Shrine Center in good ol' Cbus, OH.

Chris from the Columbus Gordon Biersch and his Hop Hookah!

AleFest here in Columbus, OH was Saturday, February 6th, 2010. There were about 60 breweries represented. It was a great time! Got to meet some more homebrewers and they got to try my IPA. I was very grateful to receive some pointers on my next batches and enjoy the praise for my first brew. I snuck one in for them to try!

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The central ohio homebrewers club is S.O.D.Z. which stands for Scioto Olentangy Darby Zymurgysts. I am now a proud member! I joined up on the spot.

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I sampled some delicious healthy brew from various areas, mostly local IPAs. Most notably Weasel Boy's Dancing Ferret and Gordon Biersch's crazy IPA that was infused using Chris's "Hop Hookah." Great stuff!

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I also came across a couple other different brews I'd been meaning to try; Saison DuPont belgian farmhouse ale which was very dry and fruity. I'm told this is a prime example of the saison. And La Fin Du Monde; a slightly tart, boozy golden ale. Also tried a crazy barlewine: Avery's Hog Heaven. Kinda grabs you by the booboo if you know what I mean.

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Oh and Weasel Boy has a great stout as well. And they brew in Zanesville, so I'm going to be a fan of the brewery no matter what.

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The vibe was celebratory but at the same time respectful of the venue. It was great to sample some choice ales!

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Website: http://www.alefest.com/ There are a few more this year, check em out!

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Cheers!