Long Break, Quick Update

We've been rather busy lately so it's been hard to get around to actually updating the blog.  At this point Kristi has already brewed her 1gal Belgian Ale, added the Orange zest (the outer part of an orange peel) and we've now bottled the Belgian Ale AND Irish Red both.  We've learned a lot from previous experiences and made some improvements.

For bottling the Irish Red in particular we used two fermenters, moving from a first to a second after some time, then for bottling we moved to the bottling bucket which has a spigot at the bottom.  One of the differences this time around is that Kristi found out about a "bottling wand" and got us one.  Basically, it's a wand you attach to a tube which is attached to the spigot but it does not let any beer out until it presses against a surface.  This is useful because it means we can place it in the bottles directly at the bottom, it makes it so it doesn't really foam at all, we get a consistent amount with every bottle because of stopping when it reaches the top, and it speeds up the process since we don't have to turn the spigot on or off or have anyone pumping.

This made the bottling process so much easier to the point that having a third person no longer feels necessary.  Kristi was able to pump out the filled bottles while I capped them and placed them to the side.  We've found it does a better job of keeping a lot of the useless dead yeast out of the bottles as well, though we ensured keeping some live yeast so it could continue to ferment properly in the bottle.  Which brings me to the next point.

We found with the Kolsch's that we had an inconsistency in the amount of final carbonation that had occurred.  Much of this had to do with how we mixed the sugar in before the bottling process, which we corrected with the Irish Reds by slowly pouring it in as we filled the bucket with beer.  This meant some Kolsch's were very carbonated by the end, and some were not very carbonated.  Fortunately, it seems time has solved that problem for the rest of the Kolsch's after we put them aside for a few weeks before having more.  Now the bottles seem to be better fermented.  But back to the Irish Red and Belgian Ale bottlings.

When we were bottling the Irish Red I tried a taste in my tasting glass and found that it had a strange, yet pleasing, oak taste.  According to Kristi, that oak taste is actually a specific trait to the Irish yeast we had used and is commonly used by homebrewers for just that reason.  I'm keeping it in mind for an experiment I may do in the future.  As for the Belgian Ale, when tasting I found the zest was extremely strong in it, but Kristi has learned that fermenting beers with fruit and ciders both require some aging in the bottle to mellow out the flavors.  Because of this we are waiting about a month after bottling the Belgian Ale to actually try it, but this is also good to know as tonight we plan on brewing our first cider.  I'll try to post an update tomorrow as to the process for Ciders, but what I will tell you is that you keep it in the fermenter for about a week before bottling it.  We've been told it's best to keep it in there for months so we are hoping to have it ready by late May when we expect to see a bunch of friends from out of town.  Wish us luck.