As an appropriate topic sandwiched between the Big Brew a few days ago and National Homebrew Day coming up this Friday, I will continue with brewing posts (after the one posted on Saturday) with one today and more to come later this week. I will even throw in a few of my own beer reviews this week for good measure. Of course it would have been a more proper homage to the Big Brew to actually participate, but I did not plan well enough to have my equipment not already occupied by other batches. There is always next year!
Now on to bottling the Pomegranate Hefeweizen . . .
Interesting color
There are not too many additional details to share with the bottling process, but if you have more interest in how it happens check out the video for the Blueberry Chocolate Stout bottling. Of course this time there was no (blueberry) favoring added since the POM had already been incorporated.
As usual I boiled ¾ cup of corn sugar in 2 cups of water, cooled it, then added it to the bottling bucket before racking the beer over. This was all after rinsing the sanitized bottles and bottling equipment and allowing them to air-dry a bit.
Waiting for water to boil is exciting.
The final hydrometer reading left it with a specific gravity of about 1.013, giving the beer approximately 4.34% ABV. That number did come up a bit since the POM was added going into secondary fermentation.
A bit of quality control.
After tasting the sample that was pulled off for the hydrometer, the aroma was a bit fruity and sweet with some yeasty notes. It was very smooth with some light tartness and I think it may be somewhat cider-like when carbonated. I will be sampling again in the very near future (quality control you know).
It was more work than usual.
As my closing note to this entry I will complain about my new automatic bottling apparatus. My concerns were spot on and calling it a worthless piece of garbage may be too kind. I became so frustrated with how it was working that I went back to my bottling wand, knowing that it has issues as well. The thing that the new automatic bottle filler did best was leak beer all over the floor on the way to the bottles. The way that the tubing is attached to it does not function well at all and I will need to do some work to it before ever giving it another chance. I should have purchased another handful of bottling wands rather than pay the $13 for that thing. Lesson learned I guess.
My new paperweight.
I suppose that is just another reason to move in the direction of kegging.
Stay tuned for the official review!
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