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| Free Jazz it is. |
Today is racking day. A very overdue racking day. Three batches were transferred from primary to secondary: Scuzzy Buzzy IPA (Brewed 13DEC2012), Rev 0 IPA (Brewed 05JAN2013), and P-Town Brown Ale (Brewed 05JAN2013). Scuzzy should have been transferred approximately 27 days ago, though the others are only a few days (~4) overdue.
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| Step 2: Scrub |
First step in the process is the choice of music. Free Jazz it is. Step 2: Preparatory cleanup. Scrub those carboys. Luckily they were pretty clean already. Good deal.
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| The beer, it flows |
Now, on to the transfer.
The part where beer is pumped from one container to another is one that some
consider the most exhilarating part of the brewing process. Those people
are wrong. It's enjoyable in a mindless way, I guess. Anyway, no
issues with the transfers. The beers look good.
The Brown ale is a bit lacking in color and attenuated to a whopping
gravity of 1.006. The target is darker and sweeter, so an attempt will
soon be made to add more color and sweetness. The likely procedure for
this will be to steep X lbs Chocolate Malt in Y gal water, followed by
bringing the mixture to a boil. Updates will follow.
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| P-Town Brown (-ish) Ale |
The Rev 0 IPA look and taste resemble expectations. This beer features east coast IPA bitterness, caramel color, a light body, and a refreshing bouquet of Cascade, Glacier, and Centennial hop aroma. Following a brief secondary with possible dry hopping, this will be cold crashed and kegged. Coming Soon.
Scuzzy Buzzy IPA is another story. This Frankenstein of a brew was the unfortunate victim of the too-small nylon bag disaster of late 2012. Our hop-bagging technique seemed like such an excellent idea that we brewed approximately 20 gal beer while employing small drawstring cloth bags for hopping.
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| Scuzzy Buzzy IPA |
Our hypothesis on the matter is that the bagged pellets did not experience sufficient extraction due to tight quarters preventing proper flow. Wort got sucked in, the pellets blew up (in size) as they absorbed juices, and the bags just didn't let much out. The end result was several batches of beer that were severely lacking in bitterness and aroma. Modification is necessary. We no longer use those bags. Commit us if we attempt it again.
Hop tea was added to two previous batches. The first was considered a moderate success. Ideal results were not achieved but the final product was palatable and bitter enough. The second, Nice tRye PA, is still in secondary. More on that later. Something will need to be added to the Scuzzy Buzzy. What that is will need to be determined at a later date. Now I need to go finish cleaning up. Cheers
