so my brewing has gone a little haywire lately...
I made one Munich Dunkel, but as an ale, with California V yeast, and overdiluted in it primary. It had only 1.043 corrected OG. FG (after primary fermentation) was 1.015.
So I put about 1.5 cups of brown sugar (in solution) into the secondary, plus about 1/3 oz of low acid hops pellets (Hallertau, I think). SO: a really bastardized beer. 10 days or so later I am siphoning to my bottling bucket, and all the hops, that had accumulated in the neck of the carboy, drops into solution and at least 3/4 of it siphons into my bottling bucket. Fook. so, I siphon back to my (sanitized) primary (same thing as bottling bucket, 6/5 gal food grade bucket with spigot), but tie my sanitized grain steeping bag to the end of the hose and filter out almost all of the hops. I am handling this beer way too much. anyway, I take another FG reading and it is still exactly 1.015. I guess the cup and half of brown sugar got metabolized, and I am just back where I started. isn't that just simply too high for a FG?? anyway, After drinking my gravity sample, and finding it ASTOUNDNIGLY tasty (better than some of my aged, finished beers), decide that I am going to bottle it anyway. I prime and bottle. let's see how it turns out. My hopes are not too high.
So the most recent batch just went into secondary. It is a by the book Dunkelhefe and started out at 1.048 and was 1.010 going into secondary. I drink my gravity sample, and immediately remember how little I like chocolate malt. there was like 1/2 lb or less in the whole ingredients kit, but dang, it doesn't take very much, does it? anyway, chemically this one seems to be turning out a little more straightforward than my goulash/bastard beer above. However, despite the above beer's obvious shortcomings, I really preferred the flavor over my chocolate malt infused dunkelhefe. I am really becoming more and more aware of how each ingredient/yeast/whathaveyou influence the flavor of a beer, so I think that giong forward I may do less out of the recipe book and maybe more mix and matching to see if I can come up with the PERFECT beer.
anyway, just rambling....
I made one Munich Dunkel, but as an ale, with California V yeast, and overdiluted in it primary. It had only 1.043 corrected OG. FG (after primary fermentation) was 1.015.
So I put about 1.5 cups of brown sugar (in solution) into the secondary, plus about 1/3 oz of low acid hops pellets (Hallertau, I think). SO: a really bastardized beer. 10 days or so later I am siphoning to my bottling bucket, and all the hops, that had accumulated in the neck of the carboy, drops into solution and at least 3/4 of it siphons into my bottling bucket. Fook. so, I siphon back to my (sanitized) primary (same thing as bottling bucket, 6/5 gal food grade bucket with spigot), but tie my sanitized grain steeping bag to the end of the hose and filter out almost all of the hops. I am handling this beer way too much. anyway, I take another FG reading and it is still exactly 1.015. I guess the cup and half of brown sugar got metabolized, and I am just back where I started. isn't that just simply too high for a FG?? anyway, After drinking my gravity sample, and finding it ASTOUNDNIGLY tasty (better than some of my aged, finished beers), decide that I am going to bottle it anyway. I prime and bottle. let's see how it turns out. My hopes are not too high.So the most recent batch just went into secondary. It is a by the book Dunkelhefe and started out at 1.048 and was 1.010 going into secondary. I drink my gravity sample, and immediately remember how little I like chocolate malt. there was like 1/2 lb or less in the whole ingredients kit, but dang, it doesn't take very much, does it? anyway, chemically this one seems to be turning out a little more straightforward than my goulash/bastard beer above. However, despite the above beer's obvious shortcomings, I really preferred the flavor over my chocolate malt infused dunkelhefe. I am really becoming more and more aware of how each ingredient/yeast/whathaveyou influence the flavor of a beer, so I think that giong forward I may do less out of the recipe book and maybe more mix and matching to see if I can come up with the PERFECT beer.
anyway, just rambling....
