Friday, May 02, 2008
It's Five O'Clock Somewhere #9: An empty beer fridge
It's been months, but my beer fridge is just about empty. Besides three bottles of Dieu du Ciel's Rosee d'Hibiscus and half a dozen or so bottles of my nutmeg-y Christmas Ale 2007, I've completed run out of beer. Even the last of Talbot's Porter is gone.
Simply put: I waited too bloody long between homebrewing sessions.
Last Wednesday night, while Jacquie was out, I spent the night brewing up a very simple light beer that was to be the base for my jalapeno ale (which I've dubbed Talbot's Hot Sauce, because by the time it's done, it should be a cool beverage that makes you crave a glass of water). This past Wednesday night, I transferred to secondary and added the fifteen jalapenos (about 0.7 lbs. worth) to the beer.
Now the beer has to sit for a couple of weeks before bottling. By the time it's ready to drink (or sample, more likely; again, it should be somewhat hot), it'll be mid-June.
In the meantime, I really want to make a summer pale/blonde ale for sipping on the patio, so I really need to get to that. But first, I need to get some supplies. I ran out of Cooper's dried yeast, and without that, I'm not going to have much luck making beer.
The plan is to run out and buy some yeast this weekend, as well as some bottle caps and wine corks (I'll explain the corks in a sec), and then maybe find a few hours before Sunday night to actually brew the beer.
Also this weekend, I want to bottle my cinnamon mead. I made the batch (half-batch, actually) in November, transferred to secondary in January and then transferred to tertiary in March. At this point, it's spent about four months in secondary/tertiary. While Kevin Tighe suggested I leave it six to eight months in secondary (I won't transfer to tertiary with my next mead), I've finally run out of patience -- and frankly, I want to be able to drink some of the mead during the summer (chilled, naturally).
This is where the corks come in. I have a large number of wine bottles collecting dust in the basement. Kevin loaned me his corker so I could make use of them. Now I just need corks and a bit of time to clean and sterilize about ten to fifteen bottles.
Additionally, Brian over at Homebrewers Retail got Kevin and I some proper mead yeast, so I need to also make use of that. What does that mean? Well, it means I need to buy some more honey and get another mead in primary.
With that much brewing going on, I think I'm going to need some more carboys.
Simply put: I waited too bloody long between homebrewing sessions.
Last Wednesday night, while Jacquie was out, I spent the night brewing up a very simple light beer that was to be the base for my jalapeno ale (which I've dubbed Talbot's Hot Sauce, because by the time it's done, it should be a cool beverage that makes you crave a glass of water). This past Wednesday night, I transferred to secondary and added the fifteen jalapenos (about 0.7 lbs. worth) to the beer.
Now the beer has to sit for a couple of weeks before bottling. By the time it's ready to drink (or sample, more likely; again, it should be somewhat hot), it'll be mid-June.
In the meantime, I really want to make a summer pale/blonde ale for sipping on the patio, so I really need to get to that. But first, I need to get some supplies. I ran out of Cooper's dried yeast, and without that, I'm not going to have much luck making beer.
The plan is to run out and buy some yeast this weekend, as well as some bottle caps and wine corks (I'll explain the corks in a sec), and then maybe find a few hours before Sunday night to actually brew the beer.
Also this weekend, I want to bottle my cinnamon mead. I made the batch (half-batch, actually) in November, transferred to secondary in January and then transferred to tertiary in March. At this point, it's spent about four months in secondary/tertiary. While Kevin Tighe suggested I leave it six to eight months in secondary (I won't transfer to tertiary with my next mead), I've finally run out of patience -- and frankly, I want to be able to drink some of the mead during the summer (chilled, naturally).
This is where the corks come in. I have a large number of wine bottles collecting dust in the basement. Kevin loaned me his corker so I could make use of them. Now I just need corks and a bit of time to clean and sterilize about ten to fifteen bottles.
Additionally, Brian over at Homebrewers Retail got Kevin and I some proper mead yeast, so I need to also make use of that. What does that mean? Well, it means I need to buy some more honey and get another mead in primary.
With that much brewing going on, I think I'm going to need some more carboys.
// posted by Chris @ 9:24 AM 
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