Wild week ... two ciders, an ale and a lager ...

Yikes! I decided if my kitchen was going to look like a mud bomb exploded in it, I might as well get some good mileage out of it.

All through now, though ... two strawberry buckets full of home-orchard Lodi cider spiked with light brown sugar are quietly burbling on the kitchen counter, the Bohemian-style-sort-of lager is in the shed gradually working through its thing and I just put the ESB out in my office where it can stay at 70 degrees and smell as skunky as it wants to ...

Just thought I'd share. I haven't brewed a beer since I was in college and that's been about 20 years ... good to be back!

--Finn

Looks like Homebrewers Anonymous is no longer working for you! What a shame. Welcome back.

What's this bohemian-style-sort-of-lager you speak of?

chase said:

Looks like Homebrewers Anonymous is no longer working for you! What a shame. Welcome back.

What's this bohemian-style-sort-of-lager you speak of?

Click to expand...

Well, it's Mrkristofo's recipe for Bohunk Pilsner, but a couple modifications had to be made because my local brewing supply was out of a couple key ingredients -- so I had to use German lager yeast (wlp830) and Tettnanger hops instead of Saaz.

I cooked it up one week ago -- it's in my garden shed, which is heated just enough to drive the damp Willamette Valley winter yucks out. I haven't put the thermostat strip on it yet but I think it's at about 50 degrees most of the time. Another week, and I'll rack it to another carboy and set it out in the woodshop to lager. The woodshop is a lean-to on the north side of the garden shed -- no solar gain, just enough heat coming through the walls to keep from freezing -- this time of year, I guess it's about perfect.

I started the nutty bitter when I realized that I was going to have to wait until early SPRING before I could start DRINKING the stuff! Yikes, I'm gonna have enough trouble waiting three weeks for the nutty bitter to be ready. And as for the cider, well ...

Cheers!

--Finn