Brew Time : pt. 2
Feb 19 2010
Well, the transfer to the secondary fermenter is complete. Currently, it’s looking like I’m on target for an alcohol percentage of around 5%. My SG (specific gravity) at the time of the transfer was about an eyelash over 1.012. Not bad, not great…pretty much in the middle, in terms of the alcohol by volume. One thing I can say about this step to anyone interested in home brewing: make sure you get yourself an auto siphon. That tool is absolutely amazing. I stuck it in the primary, gave it 2 pumps and the beer started transferring nice and smoothly.
Now that foam you see in the photo is actually from the sanitizer solution that was in the carboy prior to transfer. However, as I’ve learned: don’t fear the foam. There even seems to be a school of thought that the foam from Star-San might be some sort of food for the yeasties. Needless to say, the racking process went swimmingly. Took all of about 10 minutes, and although I was nervous about aerating it with a bunch of oxygen that might negatively affect the flavor, I couldn’t be happier with how well it went.
On another upbeat note, the broken section of the spoon that was referenced in Brew Time: pt. 1.5 (and led to the name of Broken Spoon Amber) didn’t make the move over to the secondary (click on the photo to see it up close and personal). Maybe I’ll make a necklace out of it, similar to Eric Estrada’s umbilical chord necklace… but I digress. None of the of sludge, or trub as it’s called in the classy home brew circles, on the bottom of the primary made it over either. So I’m hoping for a very clear final product. Or, at least as clear as one could get without a fancy filtering system. Needless to say, with each passing day… or more correctly each passing sample I’ve pulled… the beer is tasting better and better. There is, however, one thing that is confusing me. This kit is an American Amber Ale by definition. However, it’s taste is very similar to Firestone’s California Pale Ale. A fine beer that I tried for the very first time during my little session of ” get a bunch of beer and see what this reminds me of”.
You see, the taste was bugging me. It was very good, but reminded me of something I’d tried before. S0, I went to Savemart and made myself a six-pack sampler of a few different beers, including Full Sale Amber, Red Tail, Anderson Valley’s Boont Amber, and a few others in order to figure out where I’ve tasted this beer before (because I was sure I had). One of them was this Firestone beer. It was something I have never had it before, and I was looking to round out a sixer. Now, I know that a Pale Ale is an offshoot of the Amber Ale tree, so I shouldn’t be that surprised, considering it’s my first attempt and there were a couple of things that weren’t exactly “text book” in my brewing process. I’m still trying to figure out what previously drank beer it was that this batch reminds me of, considering that until yesterday the Firestone CPA was one that I’ve never tasted, but for now I’m over that. It is what it is. Maybe one day, I’ll figure it out…who knows. However, I can’t stress enough that I do really love the taste of this batch. As I’ve said before, I’d drink it as it currently stands… carbonation be damned. So I can’t really complain about whether or not this beer ends up as a true amber ale or not. With that being said, bottling will commence on March 6th, and from that point there’s an estimated 2-plus weeks of bottle conditioning to further refine the taste and build up the carbonation. Then, it’s down the gullet.
Now, what do I do in the meantime, you ask? Simple. I’m starting a pipeline. I’ll be doing up my Sierra Nevada clone this weekend, and I’ll be using my new Bayou Classic SP-10 propane burner to brew this one up. It should cut down immensely on the time it takes to get things to boiling temp, slashing the total amount of time it takes to prepare this next batch. After this upcoming batch moves to the secondary stage, it’ll be on to a batch of a Moose Drool Brown Ale clone called Caribou Slobber, followed by Phat Tyre (you can probably guess what this is a clone of).
After all four of these batches are in the books, I’ll be trying my hand at a porter (possibly bourbon barrel) and a chocolate cherry stout. After all, I need a good collection of beers to offer on tap. Yes, I said on tap…. meaning, I’ve secured the appropriate mini-fridge to convert to a kegerator. It’s a Kenmore Elite 4.9 cu. ft. mini-fridge, bought off craigslist.com for $100. I’ll issuing a step-by-step post for anyone who is interested in making one of their own. Hopefully the info you glean from it will help.
That’s all for now, next up: the bottling process.
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