Fermentation Confrontation??????

Our first two batches were a 2-step fermentation. Once the airlock ceased bubbling, we transferred to secondary where we left the beer for an additional 5-6 days before bottling. The hefeweizen we are currently fermenting has been in primary for more than 3 weeks as per advice from another homebrewer. And the chocolate stout was in primary for 2 weeks, then transferred to secondary where it has been for 2 weeks. Rather than listen to other people with this batch, I decided to go with my gut feeling and transfer the beer for filtering purposes. It's a damn good thing because there was a ton of sludge in the bottom that will be significantly cut down on due to our process.

My question is this, and I would like to receive any and all feedback, so please leave comments. Which way is the righty way? It's difficult when you have 12 brewers giving you 16 different answers. Like I said, any and all feedback would be appreciated!

Getting good feedback...

After getting your opinions on here, as well as my friends opinions, and including the owner of my LHBS, I've decided to enter two of my best beers in the National Homebrew Competition. I have some preparation time which will give me a chance to create my labels, and decide which two I want to enter.

To be clear, I'm not entering for competition sake as much as I'm interested in getting some feedback and I'm just interested to see how well it holds up against the other beers entered. It's certainly cheap enough to enter and I want to get into this more deeply, but one has to walk before they can crawl.

I'm really looking forward to this and I will keep you all posted on progress and labels, etc. The only downside I could possibly see to entering these competitions is that if you do somewhat decently, you have to submit your recipe for publishing... which, if it's an award winning recipe, it may not be something you'd want to publicize.

This weekend, amidst the St. Patrick's insanity and the open bar that I'm attending at Philadelphia famous Chickie & Pete's, I will be trying to work on my labels and making sure I've got all the rules down and really focus on getting the most out of this experience.

Feel free to leave comments, I will be updating soon. Any tips, suggestions, or comments about the process are encouraged. I need all the help I can get at this point!

Thanks for reading!

Better than I expected?????

So this weekend while having a few beers with friends, homebrewing came up in conversation. Quickly realizing that my Gold Ale and Honey Amber Ale were ready to drink. I shot around the corner to my house and filled up a 6 pack with three of each style.

I passed tasters around to my friends and we all sampled the beer. Being very critical of my own work, I thought it was good, but not nearly as good as everyone was raving about. They began discussing my beer, talking about the different flavors that they could taste. I didn't hear a bad comment about it.

I listened to what they had to say, and once I paid more attention to it, it became clear to me that I wasn't giving myself enough credit. I am thoroughly happy with what I have come up with. Perhaps it is pure luck, but I think this beer (Primarily the Honey Amber) is something that I should reproduce and do yet again.

Along those lines, I was thinking of perhaps entering into a competition. Whether or not I get entirely annihilated by the competition, I think it will be a fun event. If nothing else, it will be a great networking opportunity and a good chance to develop some good ideas and share my thoughts with experience brewers.

These are the things that are currently going through my mind and I'm going to look very closely into what Philadelphia has to offer along the lines of competitions. Clearly, just starting out, I don't want to jump right into the upper echelon type competitions just yet.

Keepin' on Brewin'

We now have 4 beers in the making... I've written about the Gold Ale, and the Honey Amber Ale... but have since brewed a Chocolate Stout 1.5 and a Hefeweizen.

The Gold Ale has been in bottles for nearly a month now. We tasted a bottle last week and it is coming along very nicely. If I were to do this beer again, I would most likely lighten up on the finishing hops as it has a rather bitter after taste. This is all personal preference, however, because I know plenty of hop heads that would thoroughly enjoy this beer... but I am no self-proclaimed hophead.

The Honey Amber Ale, my brainchild, is also coming along well. The honey added a fantastic touch to this beer. We tasted a bottle of this last week also, however it's only been in bottles for two weeks. It's not quite done yet, as it has a higher sugar content. The gravity of this beer will ring in at about 6.5% when all is said and done.

We are trying to get prepared for the warmer weather with the Hefeweizen. It has been racked into our new 6.5 gallon primary fermenter. We are going to try something different with this one and leave it in the primary for about 3 weeks, and skip secondary all together. Our past two batches we have used a two step fermentation process, but according to many at The Brewing Network, our method is rather old-school and unnecessary so we're going to try it this way. I am also thinking of adding a bit of orange zest to the carboy soon to add some extra flavor to the beer. I think the fruit will be a nice touch.

I know what you're thinking.... adding fruit to beer violates man laws. Well, the Belgians have been doing it for years and have created some fantastic beers, and the group that came up with such man laws was Miller Brewing Co. I think I'll take my instruction from someone who knows how to make a beer with flavor.

The Chocolate Stout 1.5 has been in the plastic 6.5 gallon fermenter, and we're going to transfer it to the glass 5 gallon. This way we have the opportunity to brew another beer and rack to primary, as well as have the plastic bucket ready for bottling when the time comes.

More to come soon... please leave comments!

Keep on Brewin'