So no new posts in a while but at least the brewery is producing.

I talked about the American Brown in the last post but since then Lee and I brewed up the Robust Porter on the 3rd and I followed it up with the Oatmeal Stout a few days later. Then having an extra fermenter laying around I whipped up 5 gallons of mead.

The Brown ended up fermenting out to 1.014. Half got bottled and Harley racked the other half into the keg.

I’ll hold off on the my assessment until I break into the bottles. While still a very young beer I’m a little disappointed with the results. It’s OK but I had higher hopes for this recipe. Some time in the bottle should help bring it together.

Lee’s Porter is going to be great. The recipe was fairly simple and the sample smelled and tasted great. Really looking forward to this beer coming of age.

• 20 lbs American 2-row
• 1 lb American Crystal 60L
• 1 lb American Chocolate
• .5 lb American Black Patent
• .5 oz Chinook 12.8AA 60 min
• 1.25 oz Centennial 9.AA 30 min
• 2 oz Santium 5.8AA 10 min
• WL005 British Ale Yeast

We split the batch and he fermented half at his place and I put mine into the fermentation closet here at the homestead, which was modified to hold 35 gallons worth of fermenters. Mine fermented out to 1.011 while I think that Lee got to 1.010 or maybe a little below. We bottled his first, not sure exactly when but mine were bottled later on the 17th.

I’m fighting the urge to open one early to “check the carbonation” and such. With only half the batch in my possession I should miser this one. It’s going to be a great beer.

The Oatmeal Stout went off on the 8th. It’s only a mild experiment since this was a simple, great tasting Stout recipe that I added some flaked oats to.

• 20 lbs American 2-row
• 3 lbs American Roasted Barley
• 3 lbs Flaked Barley
• 2 lbs Flaked Oats
• 2 oz Chinook 13.1AA 60 min
• .5 oz Chinook 12.8AA 60 min
• 1 oz Nugget 11.AA 60 min
• WLP060 American Ale Yeast Blend

This stout recipe takes 4-6 months before it really mellows and comes together so I’m not in a hurry to get this one into bottles. I also fermented this one in a new 10 gallon vessel as a primary fermentation, which seemed to work out well. On the 27th it got racked into 2 glass carboys for a secondary. It seemed to be done when I racked it. The SG was 1.012 and I don’t expect it to come down any further so I’ll probably get it into bottles sometime in the next week or so and stick it away in a closet till late spring.

One thing that was a bit of a disappointment on all three of these first batches was that I missed my target gravity by 7-10 points across the board. Not the end of the world but it does bring my brewhouse efficiency down to around 65%, which is not acceptable. The problem is most likely a combination of my return manifold creating channels and the cavitation problems I’ve had with the pump from the HLT on the last two batches. I’ll try something new on the next batch and see if I can’t bump that percentage up.

I also made two mead experiments in the last month or so.

The first involved the leftover runoff from the American Brown. After filling the boil kettle on that batch I drained the MT into a bucket and ended up with nearly 4 gallons of a nice smelling and tasting runoff with a SG of around 1.012. I boiled it down for a while, threw some hops in and then added 3 lbs of a really dark Buckwheat Honey. It ended up as 2.5 gallons of something with a OG of 1.051. I skimmed some of the yeast off of the Brown and it fermented out to a FG of 1.001. The end result was fairly nasty to smell and taste. The hops and the Honey did not combine well. I bottled it anyway and plan to check back on it in 6 months or so. It may be the first “brew” that I pour down the drain.

The second experiment was a straightforward Mead that I will add some Plums from our tree to and make into a Melomel. So far it’s still a Mead with just Honey and water with dry Lavalin D-47 yeast and nutrient. I had an OG of 1.105. As of the other day it was down to 1.046 and still chugging along. Being a Mead it will take a while and I don’t plan on racking it onto the fruit in a secondary for at least a few weeks. I’m not sure how long I will bulk age it before bottling but I expect to have one of my carboys tied up for the near future at least.