My Attempt at "North American" Styled Ale... moved to Secondary

Transferred the brew to the secondary fermenter today. It had a really, really long, vigorous fermentation period. Usually my beers ferment furiously for a day or two, then taper off. This one went for 4 or 5 days. It is still really, really cloudy and has a cidery odour to it. I don't have high hopes for this one. I may give it a really long sit in the secondary in the hopes we get some clarity.

New Brew!

In my quest to do a light coloured North American ale I decided to really switch things up. Instead of buying a kit, I bought 1.3 kg of un-hopped light malt extract liquid, 1.7 kg of clear hi-malt glucose syrup, a package of Cascade hops and some high quality yeast. The guy a the brew store mentioned that while this will work, it will probably have a very low alcohol content. We can't have that, so I'll be adding a little extra dextrose (to keep things light) during the boil.

Bottled My First Batch

Bottled up the IPA on Thursday (Feb 11). I had lots of Beau's Lug Tread bottles kicking around, so I decided to use these. Beaus use really nice, retro styled 750 ml ceramic bottles with Grolsch styled flip-top lids. I figured these would be really good to use. Boy, was I wrong. Since they are opaque, you have no idea how how full they're getting, and they all end up overflowing. On top of that, a good portion of them cracked and leaked when the carbonation started to happen. I won't be using these again.

Primed with 3/4 cup of dextrose.

Racked to Secondary

Racked my Canadian Blonde to the secondary fermenter tonight. I think it was still actively fermenting since I double pitched this time, but it shouldn't hurt. The beer is very cloudy but I think will clear nicely. I gave it a quick taste while I was syphoning and it actually tasted really good - very mellow with a slight taste of the hops! I'm excited about this one.

Fermentation!

Checked on the status of my Blonde yesterday afternoon and fermentation was going full blast. Lots of foam on top and I could smell the alcohol. Probably settle down within the next day or two.

Canadian Blonde

Since my last batch was rather dark (an IPA) I wanted to go a different route and do something much lighter in colour. This time I chose a Coopers Canadian Blonde. Didn't really do much different here except for using a bigger boil. I went out and bought an 8 quart pot (2 gallon?) since I read the bigger the boil you use, the lighter and smoother the beer. I boiled very gently for a long time, took the water off the heat, stirred in the extract, and when I was sure it was dissolved, put it back on the heat. Slowly boiled for about 40 minutes, then took off the heat and added 500 g of LME, put back on the heat and brought back to a boil. Then it was time for the hops. This time I used about 24 grams of Mount Hood (some laid back hops) and stirred in till dissolved. I kept the boil short this time to see if it made a difference. Chilled the wort, topped up and aerated, then pitched the yeast when it was around 20 degrees. Nothing fancy with the yeast - I used the packets that come with the kits, 2 this time, just in case one was dead. 14 grams total of unknown yeast.

Extract Brewing Tips

Here's a few things I've learned along the way to making better beer:

• Always try to boil as much of the 5 gallon batch as possible when boiling wort. This will result in clearer, lighter coloured beer.


• When adding the extract to the boiling water, remove the water from the heat source and stir the contents in so the extract doesn't stick to the bottom and burn. This will reduce caramelization of the extract and help prevent a burnt taste.


• Chill the wort as quickly as possible


• Get the yeast into the wort as quickly as possible (helps prevent bacterial infections of the wort).


• When adding water to the wort, splash it around as much as possible. Oxygenation is good at this stage


• When transferring the beer to the secondary or bottling, splash it around as little as possible. Oxygen at this stage leads to off flavours.

IPA to Secondary

Racked the IPA to the secondary fermenter yesterday (January 31, 2010). It has a dark-golder colour to it and is still pretty cloudy. I had a little taste of it and it was pretty rough, but you can definitely taste the hops. The airlock is still bubbling maybe once a minute, so there's still some fermentation going on.