A NIGHT WITH THE HOPS

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!

Since I had quite an inventory of home brewed beer built up a break from brewing was in order, though I did not know that time off would turn into three months!  So when I decided to start up again, I had to (in my mind) make up for lost time and brew frequently in the month of April.  It also made for a good opportunity to try brewing a few styles that I have not attempted to tackle to this point.  After (too) much thought, a Hefeweizen was first in line to go as a fairly simple recipe to ease back into things with.

This is the Hefeweizen that will be getting the infusion of POM that was provided to me free of charge via the generosity of Jeff Rushton.  That process will happen as I rack the beer to secondary fermentation.

Now to get the first step out of the way, check out this short video of the set up before the start of brewing.

As always, I do my very best to ensure that everything used for my brewing has been sanitized to the best of my ability before getting started.  With that, I again brought 2.5 gallons of water to about 160 degrees and put the following into the grain bag:

• 1.25 lb German Pilsner Malt
• 8 oz Cara Pils Malt
• 1.25 lb Red Wheat

Grains taking a bath

The grains were then soaked for 45 minutes while maintaining the temperature at about 155 degrees.  The grain bag was then pulled out and I poured 2 quarts of 170 degree water over it to ensure all of the grainy goodness was not lost. I removed the pot from the heat and then added:

• 5 lb Wheat Extract

Once the malt extract was stirred in, the pot went back on the heat until there was a good rolling (controlled) boil.  I set the timer for 60 minutes and then it was time for:

• Bittering hops – .75 oz Hallertau
• Flavoring hops – None this time
• Aroma hops – .25 oz Hallertau

Weighing out the hops

After the 60 minutes of boiling I was able to get everything pretty quickly down close to 80 degrees, though struggled with the last few degrees.  Room temperature in my house this time of year hovers around 80 as the windows are open to the outdoor air quite a bit, so getting liquid cooled to below that is a bit of a struggle.  I have continued to put off building a proper wort chiller, so I only have myself to blame until taking the time to do so.  I have learned not to stress over those last few degrees though.

When the temperature was at roughly 84 degrees (with water added to about 5.25 gallons) I pitched in the bloomed Munich German Wheat dry yeast that I was using for the recipe.  It was bloomed by adding the dry yeast to 1 cup of warm water and letting it sit for 15 minutes.  I then boiled 1 tsp. in a small amount of water, cooled the mixture, added it to the yeast, and again covered it as I continued with the boiling step of brewing.  All is well as fermentation was going strong by the time that I checked on it early the next morning and I expect a bit more of a banana profile resulting from the higher fermentation temperatures.

They are alive!

The original specific gravity came in at approximately 1.0461, which was a bit lower than expected (as usual for me).  I will let it sit for a week or so before racking to secondary and adding the POM to the equation.

Stay tuned . . .