P1010598

[glasseye]

P1010598
Originally uploaded by Derian le Breton.

Two five gallon batches of home brewed goodness. The left is a mead which will hopefully end up being nice and dry. The right is an Extra Special Bitter ale, which is just starting two weeks of dry hopping for extra aroma (no additional bitterness.) The beer should be ready around christmas, who knows when the mead will be done. 

Comments

[tejolote.livejournal.com]

I'm still stuck on the phrase "dry hopping."

[glasseye.livejournal.com]

I don't know why it's called that, but basically you just put some hops in the fermenter. The bitterness and flavour of hops come out during boiling, wheras "dry hopped" hops just contribute aroma.

It has something to do with how the acids come out of the hop resin during boiling, I think.

God I love hops!

[caius38.livejournal.com]

I have dry hopped by adding to a keg or secondary at racking. Save me a beer.

Re: God I love hops!

[glasseye.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I dry hopped my first ESB a couple of years ago and it was a huge hit. Same deal here, hops in the secondary for ~2 weeks.

[lubeck.livejournal.com]

I blow out the yuck in the first couple of days in my beer carboy using a hose and extra carboy as the bubbler. It helps clarity and keeps all the funky flavors from introducing themselves in the finish.

I am not quite sure if you do that, but by the looks of your bubbler it might be a bit hard. I use the 2 piece (shitty) bubbler and blow the gunk through a 3/8 od hose.

mmmmm looks good.

Caius and I did an all grain with heather tips instead of hops here yesterday. It's for the Baronial party.

[(Anonymous)]

I usually try to rack to the secondary within a couple of weeks of the primary fermentation getting going. I've left beer in the primary for a month with lots of lees on the bottom, and so far all of my batches have turned out pretty good. I generally don't care about clarity. ;)

I want to do all grain some day... Let me know how the heather beer turns out, sounds interesting!

[glasseye.livejournal.com]

Dur, that was me.

[rasper77.livejournal.com]

mmmm Beverage goodness mmmm....
Im about to make my first beer weekend after next:)
Going for that porter goodness:)

[glasseye.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I still haven't tried a porter, but it's on my short list. I found a really wacky recipe that includes all sorts of spices and other stuff. Should be fun. :)

[rasper77.livejournal.com]

Sweet, Ill be sure and share my creations as I know you have with me in the past.