brewing

Did I say weekly homebrew update? I could do it daily. I almost started a whole separate blog about homebrewing. But I'll just keep writing about it here.

I am hoping to write about each and every brew we've done, but I don't know if I would get to them all. I do have to mention my favorite so far, though - Barkin Bourbon Porter.



It is hard to describe the look I was going for on the label - Chris didn't quite get it. I was thinking along the lines of Jack Daniels, like old south. So these were supposed to be photos of the mutts, in old fashioned frames, with what I envision as old school style wallpaper. I don't know how successful it was but I like it.

We bought the Bourbon Barrel Porter kit from Northern Homebrew. The kit included oak cubes that you add to secondary fermentation, to add that oak barrel flavor. It also called for bourbon, and recommended maker's mark, which we used. The result has been delicious. I have to say that so far, I think the darker beers we've brewed have been tastier than the lighter ones. I guess I could say that the beers are like my babies and I love them all equally, but I would totally be lying because the bourbon porter is amazing and definitely my favorite.

One of the hardest things about brewing is being patient while you wait for the beer to be ready. What you're REALLY supposed to do is to check the brew daily while its in fermentation and the specific gravity will tell you when its ready for the next step, whether that's secondary fermentation or bottling. That involves taking some of your brew out every day and testing it. We don't do that. What we do is leave it in primary for approximately a week, secondary for approx. 2 weeks, and then in bottles for at least 3 weeks before tasting it. I have recently learned that this is the 1-2-3 method, who knew that it had such a fancy name. Anyway it has worked for us so far. Some of the instructions say that you can taste a beer as soon as 1-2 weeks after bottling but we've found that the longer we wait, the better it is, so we resist as long as we can.

We did taste the Not From a Cow Cream Ale last week. It was tasty but it does need some more time. It had been bottled for just over 3 weeks. The next one to be ready will be Rudolph's Tasty Treat (label still pending!)