Kegged today

I used the video I posted a few days ago as my instructions for kegging the beer. Here's what I did prior to kegging.

1. Picked up a 7/8" in open-ended wrench at Menards so I could get my corny keg's valves off. I had to have 2 beers to muscle these things off. Whew!
2. Watched the video about 5 times and confered with my notes.
3. Sanitized everything that I needed - hoses, valves, gaskets, etc.
4. Replace all of the gaskets I missed from when I cleaned the keg.
5. Fill the keg with 5 gallons of water and put in iodine sanitizer for 10 minutes.
6. Invert filled keg into 1 gallon of sanitization fluid in my Ale Pail and let sit for 10 minutes (this got the top of the keg and the attachments.
7. Empty and put keg back together.
8. Siphon beer into keg.
9. Pressurize and test for leaks.
10. No leaks.
11. Done

Great kegging video - took all my worries away

Batch 4 in the fermenter

Last Saturday (4/12) I brewed another extract kit - American Amber by Brewer's Best. I picked up another carboy but I'm using the Ale Pail for primary fermentation. It's been a good 5 days and I'm still getting airlock activity so that's a good thing. I'll put more detail in this post later.

I'm moving my secondary fermentation carboy into refrigeration for batch 3 (Maibock) for the next few weeks then I'll bottle.

Batch 3 updates

It's day 6 from when I pitched the yeast on 3/29 and I'm getting about 1 bubble on the airlock every 6 seconds yet. It's definitely still working away. This is the first time I've used the Wyeast Activator and this is the longest I've had fermentation going.

After reading the lagering notes for the Maibock (from a site other than Northern Brewer) I'm going to do the following.

1. Primary fermentation for 7-14 days at 56-57°F.
2. Rack to carboy and bring to 60-62°F for diaceytl action for 1 day.
3. Bring back down to 56-57°F for another 7 days.
4. Put in the refridgerator and bring down to 34°F for 14 days.
5. Bottle and condition for 2-3 weeks (have to find out if I keep it cold or let it condition warmer)

I'm also going to start a new batch this weekend because I want to have some craft beer before the end of May:).

Batch 3 Notes

Batch 3* Notes

Maibock (Northern Brewer extract kit)

Specialty Grains
1 lbs. Belgian Caramel Pils

Fermentables
3.15 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup (boil for 60 min.)
6 lbs. Gold Malt Syrup (boil for 15 min.)

Boil Additions
2 oz. Spalt (60 min)
1 oz. Argentina Cascade (15 min)

Yeast
Wyeast #2124 Bohemian Lager Yeast. A pilsner yeast from the Weihenstephen. Ferments clean and malty, with rich residual maltiness in full gravity pilsners. Flocculation: medium. Apparent attenuation: 69-73%. Optimum temperature: 48-58.

Brewed: 3/29/2008 starting at 7:00 PM

Fermenatation vessel: 6.5 G Ale Pail

Pitched yeast at 64° F.

OG: 1.058

Airlock activity noticed approximately 20 hours after pitching. Temperature on the Ale Pail thermometer is 56-57° F attained in the unheated crawlspace in the basement.

* I've brewed 5 or 6 batches about 8 years ago before a co-worker got me re-interested in homebrewing again. I've restarted my brewing diary online at this site so this will be batch #3.

Maibock is in the fermenter

Well this weekend was beer and brat weekend. I brewed a batch of extract Maibock* and made brats...yes...ground the meat, cleaned the hog casings, stuffed the casings and poached the sausages. You may now call me Herr Volz.

The Maibock was low on the OG vs. what the package said. Mine measured a 1.058 vs. the 1.064. We'll see how it turns out. It's been 12 hours and no airlock activity but the directions say it may take 24 - 48 hours so I'm not worried yet.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/lagerkits.html

OG: 1064 / Ready: 3 months
In Germany, this sub style of the bock family is
brewed late in the year and lagered all winter; then in May, the beer is
ceremonially tapped and consumed at huge outdoor parties that have big
unpronounceable German names. Maibocks are quite strong, and are very pale
despite their high original gravities - the palest commercial examples are
barely darker than a pilsner. With a traditionally pale color and a delicate hop
aroma, the Northern Brewer Maibock is a Fruhjahrstarkbierfest in a box.

The brats turned out great. The only thing that I'm going to change next time is the first time when you grind the meat you use the 1/8" grind plate and then use the same plate to put the ground meat into the casings. This results in a fine grind brat (like a Klements) but I like the larger grind (like a Johnsonville). I poached them in 2 bottles of my American Lager and man did it smell great along with the hoppy aroma left from yesterday's batch of beer.

Well - I'm off to fire up the grill and grill these sausages.

Later and Gemutlichkeit!

Greg

Food and Froth Recap

3 floors in 3 hours with over 60 beer breweries, vendors, and distributors. Impossible to go through in it's entirety but a very fun night.

This was my 8th F&F and my wife, Karen's 5th. I had gone the inaugural year when I was with Firstar Information Services way back when it was held in the Grand Avenue Mall instead of the Milwaukee Public Museum. Be assured that the museum is a much better venue than the mall. The dimmer lighting and the walk through historic downtown Milwaukee is heads above having a nice bock next to Gamestop.

We ventured out with another couple, Dale & Tanya. I've worked with Dale for five years but this is the first F&F we've been to. It was good to have somebody with that appreciates beer and to compare tasting comments (because I was a little too tipsy to write anything).

Nothing really stood out as new and exciting this year as I'd had most of what we were tasting. I did wear my Lakefront Brewery polo and did receive two free tour tickets. If you ever come to Milwaukee the Lakefront tour is one of the best for it's value and you get to see some Milwaukee historical artifacts there as well!

Make sure to mark your calendars for next year.

Milwaukee Food & Froth

This weekend I'll be attending the Milwaukee Food & Froth Festival . I've been to about 7 of the 10 over the years and it's always an enjoyable experience. While the tasting is on Saturday I'll be staying in downtown Milwaukee on both Friday and Saturday Night.

On Friday nights agenda I've got the Milwaukee Hoffbrau Haus and The Milwaukee Alehouse lined up to sample some of their brews.