brewing in maine

I went ahead with the cider recipe and it’s fermenting in my 7.5 gallon bucket right now. Mistakes were made, but I’m thinking they won’t be a big deal.

I bought 7 gallons of local cider from the grocery store – it was pasteurized – and decided upon some research to skip the Camden tablets entirely. I sanitized the bucket, lock and cover and dumped it all in. OG on the cider was around 1.042.

Into the cider went both vials of yeast, a White Labs English Cider WLP775 and a White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale (Westmalle yeast). Then I realized that the cider temp had to be somewhere in the low fifties. Not good.

No action for 24 hours, but then a little bit of bubbling, and by this morning it’s cranking. The top of the bucket is bulged up and the lock is burping away. Without Campden tablets I do have to be very careful about the timing of my next sugar addition (the honey, molasses and cane sugar) because once the yeast are done something else might move in. I intend to check the gravity in another 24 hours to see where we’ve gotten to.

The cider yeast attenuation is over 80% and the Westmalle is around 80% tops so this should be nice, dry, strong cider when all is said and done.

The Tripel has been racked to its secondary where it will live for a week and then head into the fridge for a week of cold conditioning. I was shocked to find it had fermented all the way down to 1.008! That’s the best attenuation I’ve had yet, assuming I hit my OG which I’m not sure about, practically 90%.

It smells great and tastes good too, all kinds of clove, fruit and not much of an alcohol-heavy flavor at all. Looks like I survived my fermentation temp rise so far.

This one should come in around 9.5% ABV once all is said and done.

The smells coming from the Tripel as it ferments have been pleasantly fruit-like but subtle. Once the cane sugar went in, however, the room nearly filled with a banana ester flavor. It must be something to do with the way the yeast process the cane sugar. Since we’re doing a renovation on the house my brewing books are boxed away in storage so I can’t do much for research.

I’m concerned that the esters will be too powerful, or linger too much, but maybe a lot of it will be reabsorbed as the yeast go dormant. Either way it’s to style from what I’ve read.

So I took a reading on the Tripel tonight, three days into fermentation, just as the yeast was slowing down (a bubble every 10 secs or so). The beer was starting to clear up a bit on the top couple of inches, with a settling yeast cloud below.

I roused the yeast first, then added the cooled syrup I made with 2.5 lbs of boiled table sugar.

Before the sugar was added, the gravity read 1012. That’s incredible for three days even with the large starter, and I think tells me my mash went as poorly as I thought. Although it’s consistent with the lower mash temps yielding a more fermentable wort. Since I forgot to take my original gravity measurement, I can only guess based on the recipe what my starting point was, but according to ProMash it’s 1061.  That’s 80% attenuation – more than Wyeast even specifies for the strain. So I’m naturally suspicious my OG was really in the 1052-1055 range.

Either way this beer seems to be very busy even a scant 15 minutes after the sugar addition – should be cranking tonight.

The Tripel is down from a high of 78 deg last to about 72 thanks to the window left open and a box fan blowing air across the carboy all night. Not sure I can cool it much further – it’s still very active.

Here’s a video of the Tripel fermentation, 24 hours in. We’re up to 76 degrees on the carboy thermometer-strip. Yikes – no good!

embedded by Embedded Video

I woke up this morning to the Tripel fermentation lock bubbling every second – no churning yet but things are definitely getting started. My starter seemed a little slow but this guy’s getting going. My only worry is temperature…I had it cooled to 64 degrees in the kettle according to the thermometer I trust, but the carboy temp strips said more like 67-68. They are reading 70 now so hopefully this means the fermentation is really in the 66-67 range and we’re on track. It’s going to heat up fast.

The gamble is whether I can find my blowoff hose before things really get roaring.

The Helles has joined its darker cousin in the lager fridge. After 2 weeks in primary at 54 degrees (warmer than I wanted but that’s the basement for you) I’ve racked it off to secondary. We’re at 70% attenuation so far – 1.050 to 1.015 – and hopefully it will reach 1.012 by the time all is said and done for final attenuation of 76%.

I tasted the sample and it’s full of maltiness – very much the grain taste on the back of the tongue which probably won’t be as present at proper lager serving temps. An earlier sample from a few days back still had lingering Hallertauer flavor but that has faded somewhat even in that short time.

I’ll probably keg it in 2-3 weeks, a month at the most.