Posted on 06/08/2012 3:28:55 PM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep it is Beer Thirty Time!
Happiness is a bubbling airlock!
PORTER ALE
After last weeks positive acceptance of the Homebrewing Thread a few of you decided we needed to go weekly with this thread and I agree. Thanks to all who participated in last weeks thread.
So lets get talking about beer and wine. Last week I bottled a 9.3% Porter and decided to try one yesterday just to see how it was doing. As you might suspect it was nowhere near the carbonation level I was looking for, it needs another week or two or more. But I drank it anyway. It was quite sweet like a malty koolaid. I suspect the sweetness will mellow out and the carbonation will improve after a few more weeks aging in the bottle. After the last few sips were downed I actually needed to take a nap. It is not a session or lawnmower beer for sure!
I brewed up a Copper Ale yesterday morning. OG was 1.080 and it has a beautiful deep copper color like an old copper brew kettle. I also transferred my Honey Ale to a secondary after it had been in the primary for two weeks. So things are moving at a nice pace in order to keep the homebrews flowing around here.
Typically I like to brew the darker beers but the Honey Ale and my next brew, a Liberty Cream Ale, are Light Ales. I hope they turn out to be good brews.
When I don’t have a homebrew ready to drink I have been enjoying some Shiner Bock and a couple of styles of Blue Moon Ales. I tried a Belgian Wheat Ale from Blue Moon, which I did not like at all. Yuck! It is not a beer I like.
Find your favorite commercial beer alcohol (ABV) % level at the link below. There are 728 beers listed. There is a Sam Adams at 17.5% and a molly-whopping 43% Schorsch Bock 43.
Beers and their Alcohol Content
We’ve done wine from kits and last month did our first beer kit. It was ready to bottle about three weeks ago, and things kept happening that prevented bottling. Is it too late? Is it still good? Thanks!
Please add me to the ping list. My sweetie & I make fruit wines. We’ve even won some ribbons in amateur competitions, until Oregon realized they’d written some really archaic rules into the constitution & banned us from state & county fairs.
Our specialty is blackberry, & we’ve done some unusual wines, like banana. We also made a port once that came out wonderfully. Wish I’d made a bigger batch!
It is not two late. The longer you bulk condition the beer in the secondary is sometime very beneficial. Bottle it up!
We do a really nice Newcastle style brown ale. Yum! If you have a ping list for this, please add me.
Thanks!
Ever done a fig wine?
No real advice for kegging other than get the 20lb CO2 cylinder and don’t mess with the 5lb one.
Red_Devil 232 please add me to your ping list.
I used to brew lots of beers but my house is kinda small so I usually brew at a friends house.
Me and a friend did about 50 gallons of fruit wines last year. The cherry is my favorite followed by current. We get free fruit from people looking to get fruit cleaned up. Free wine is the best wine.
Added
Very good news indeed! I haven’t had the heart (or stomach) to open that fermenter and see what might be in there! I will text hubby now with this info. I’m putting baby girl down here in a few minutes and after I check on her big brother, I will pop the top off of a Blue Moon. Not homemade, but still one of my all-time faves. If anyone has a kit suggestion that mimics Blue Moon let me know. Cheers!
Not too late to bottle, just make sure the airlock doesn’t go dry or you risk contamination.
Free wine and beer are the best!
You are added
Added - The ping list will only grow it is currently at 111.
No, fig is one we haven’t tried yet. Our last unusual one was elderberry - a very small batch, just 12 375mg bottles. A friend passed on the berry juice from trees that were removed a short while later. Rats!
Have you done fig, & how did it turn out?
Please add me to your ping list. My husband and I make wine. I am having some of our 2009 Chianti.
I have not made a true wine yet. I have done a mead. the reason I asked about Fig wine is I have three fig trees at my home in Mississippi.
Added
Thanks. Glad to see the list. We have been making wine for about 6 years now. We started with 6 gallons of juice from California. Now we get 30 gallons of juice from California and 6 gallons of juice from Italy.
Our prinipal rule is no French on the labels!
I use Mr. Beer, it is called 1776 ale. Yes malt extract! Came out great, love the Pils though. In Europe I once had the original Budwiser, that was great. Loved all the regional brews in Germany. Once had Ganz braw , Goose beer. Lol it was very refreshing. In September 84 sat in the Lowenbraw tent at the Octoberfest and downed some liters, Lol!
I’ll have to check our recipe books & see what they say about figs. We’ve been making wine since about 1999 when we bought our current house. It had 3 apple trees, two pears, a cherry, a plum, a grape vine & a big bank of blackberry brambles. They’ve all made pretty good wine, but we finally decided to branch out - to raspberry, strawberry, marionberry, and even some real wine grapes (pinot noir, chardonnay & golden muscat). It’s definitely fun to do. It took us a while to refine our process, but now we most always end up with a good product.
When I decide to do a wine I will hit you guys up for advice.
Please add me to this ping list thanks
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.